


Taboo Tales

by TheAstronomer



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Masturbation, One Shot, Prostitution, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-27 09:33:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13878099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAstronomer/pseuds/TheAstronomer
Summary: This will just be a collection of Taboo tales, as and when they come to me. No particular time line and chapters do not necessarily follow on from one another. Hoping to write some from on-board The Good Hope at some point. I am planning to include some of the other characters from The League Of The Damned as I go.Sexual content in some chapters. Avert your eyes if you are offended by this (warnings provided in chapter intros).Tale 1: Lorna Helps Clean The Delaney Dirt.Tale 2: Atticus And A Greek God.Tale 3: Lorna Learns The Story Of James' Skin.Tale 4: A Fight With A Bear In Chancery Lane.Tale 5: Lorna And James Check Provisions.Tale 6: Lorna And Pearl Compare Notes.Tale 7: A Band Of Thieves: Atticus and French Bill.Tale 8: Sulphur, Mercury And Salt: Physician Heal Thyself.Tale 9: Reunion: More Ferarum.Tale 10: James Delaney Makes A Mistake.





	1. You Have A Smudge, James.

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is for a friend of mine on Twitter. She knows who she is. Sail on my queen!
> 
> Here we have Lorna's reaction to Delaney disappearing for 3 days...

You Have A Smudge

James had been gone for three days. Only now had he reappeared, crashing through the front door of Chamber House in the middle of the night. Drunk. Utterly pissed in fact. Brace had risen like a summoned apparition from his sleeping quarters, all sagging underpants and affront, the candle he carried lighting up his face like a ghoul.

The figure of James Delaney was silhouetted in the doorway, unsteady and breathing noisily.

‘Jesus Christ man! Where have ye been?! Shut the fucking door!’

James staggered in and pushed himself backwards against the heavy door to close it, stood panting wordlessly against it. He attempted to stand clear of the door, swaying slightly and clamped his hand onto Brace’s shoulder to steady himself. His entire face and one half of his clothes were coated in thick, stinking mud. Just as though he’d been face down in the stuff.

‘What the hell..’ began Brace.

James held up a grubby finger in front of Brace’s incredulous face.

‘Do.not.ask. Brace. Do not.’

Brace’s mouth snapped closed obediently.

‘There is nothing you need to know beyond how to get my fucking boots off.’

Lorna watched this exchange from a hidden vantage point on the stairs. She had heard the ruckus of his entrance from her bed, where she was lying sleeplessly for the fourth night since he had gone, her mind further embroidering the details of how James Delaney had died. Because in her mind, he was dead. This was despite Brace’s casual dismissal of her fears and his dogged determination in continuing to run the Delaney household: setting places for James at mealtimes, cooking enough food for him, placing a brandy bottle and glass by the fire each evening (then drinking a large amount of it himself). Yes, James Delaney was dead but Lorna could not begin to imagine what she should do next.

Except he wasn't dead; he was here, now, filthy and griping about boots and demanding Brace give him bread or cheese or meat, or all three and NOW. The relief and rage that coursed through her made her shake and clench her fists.

‘I’m fucking hungry Brace. Give me.. what? there is nothing?’

Brace shook his head. James staggered into a chair in the kitchen and Lorna silently followed to watch from the shadows in the doorway.

‘I stopped cooking for you, you ungrateful bastard.’ Brace set the candle down on the table next to James and placed his hands on his hips.

‘Well, what about..Lorna? Has she fucking...destroyed any ducks recently?’

His voice was thick and slurred.

So that was his way of asking about her. Lorna’s relief was fading and a deep, black rage was kindling in its place. Brace drew himself up in that prissy way only he could. James turned his face, smeared with drying, cracked mud towards the wiry servant.

‘The lady has barely eaten herself, never mind prepared food for a dead man.’

Lorna raised her eyebrows at ‘lady’.

‘I’m not... fucking dead, am I? Not yet.’

‘She thinks you are. Moping about without her face paint on.’

Lorna bristled. Brace had managed to reduce her fear and anguish of the last few days to a throwaway statement which mocked her. The man was poisonous. James sighed deeply and slumped down in the chair he had thrown himself into. Brace hovered uncertainly, dragging up his underwear which gravity was attempting to pull down. Lorna screwed her face up at the sight of Brace's skinny haunches as James thrust his boot out at the servant.

‘Take them off Brace. I’m too drunk.’

Lorna watched with some satisfaction while Brace scrabbled breathlessly at the heavy, sodden boot, levering it from the foot of the drunken man. When it finally came off, Brace’s hands were covered in filth and James’ foot fell to the floor loosely with a thud. He was asleep, his mouth slightly open. Brace hurled the boot towards the hearth.

‘You can keep the other one on,’ he muttered. ‘Just like your father used to.’

He passed Lorna where she stood in the doorway and paused. They stared at one another.

‘Well, there he is. Back. Still alive,' Brace declared triumphantly.

Lorna pulled her wrap tighter around her shoulders.

‘Shouldn't you cover him? He’ll freeze with no fire lit.’

‘Whatever he’s been drinking will keep him warm,’ came the terse reply and then the servant was gone, back to his cave, wherever it was in the cavernous house.

Lorna drifted closer to the figure where it was draped in the sagging armchair. His breathing was deep and regular, a slight rattle to it which threatened to become a snore. His mud smeared face was soft and open and Lorna felt her chest tighten. _Here he is. Back. Still alive_. She stared down at him, the place in her chest which now expanded felt painful, forcing the breath from her lungs and making her heartbeat almost audible in the quiet room.

Lorna was not sure what made her do it. Perhaps the fear or the rage or other dark emotions she could not even name. But even as she hurled the ice cold pitcher of water over the sleeping man, she knew it would only partly assuage her anger.

‘You have a smudge, James. Let me help you clean it,’ she said calmly.

Lorna did not wait for the angry splutter and roar but strode back to her room and slept deeply and soundly for the first time in several days.


	2. Atticus' Book - The Dolphins.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atticus tells James a story about dolphins.

Atticus' Book - The Dolphins

 

‘Do you write about me in that...book of yours, Atticus?’

Atticus was getting used to the cat-like stealth of James Delaney aboard the Good Hope. Always appearing when a man least expected it, or wanted it. In fact he felt he was getting quite a handle on the character of their captain. Like now, for example; Delaney was obviously bored. The ship was cresting smoothly through calm waters, French Bill at the wheel, the sun beating down on the deck. The women were inside, dozing in cabins.

Atticus had taken the opportunity to write about the dolphins he had watched following the ship; their smooth grey bodies coursing through the water, bulbous heads peeping out from the waves. He’d pointed them out to Robert and the solemn little boy had even managed a smile at the creatures leaping joyfully in the sparkling water.

Atticus twisted round to peer up at Delaney, shading his eyes with one hand. He closed the tattered, leather bound book over. As always, he felt tense under the scrutiny of the grim man but he hid it well.

‘I write about all the beasts in me book, James, you should know that by now.’ Atticus grinned.

In fact, he was under no illusions that Delaney was indeed one of the rarest animals he was likely to come across. And he was an animal. Watching him carve the heart from one of his best men back in London had convinced Atticus of two things: that Delaney was totally insane and that he, Atticus, would do whatever it took to stay on his right side. If he had one. That was something he was still trying to fathom out. Atticus was shrewd and clever, he’d made a living out of it, but his dance with the Delaney family felt increasingly out of control. He’d sailed under Delaney the elder, the mad old bastard, but never with Delaney the younger, equally mad and twice as terrifying.

‘Did you see the dolphins, James? Clever animals so they say.’

Delaney gave a non-committal grunt.

‘I showed ‘em to little Rob. The boy ain’t seen many animals apart from farm beasts.’

Another grunt and brief eye contact this time.

Atticus wondered to himself _why_ he was trying to make conversation with a man who was as parsimonious with words as Delaney. Delaney preferred actions. Smooth, clockwork actions carried out by vicious, desperate men who did not question why they were doing what he told them to do.

 _Or fucking irritating chemists_ , thought Atticus.

He found it hard to admit to his powerful curiosity about the peculiar chemistry the burnt little man had wrought upon the harbourside that day. There was a gap in his knowledge of such things which he felt keenly. However, there would be time enough for Atticus to get to know the nooks and crannies of the group of people which fate and James Delaney had gathered together. It was safe to say that the entire crew of the Good Hope was one of the most bizarre collection of vagabonds Atticus had ever sailed with. His eye fell upon Pearl, golden hair glinting and breasts pushed against her flimsy dress as she stretched, blinking in the sun, where she'd emerged from her cabin. Atticus allowed himself a small smile as he watched her and Pearl noticed; she retreated, scowling.

When he dragged his attention back to his immediate environment, he realised that Delaney was now sitting next to him on the deck. Both men dressed in increasingly ragged shirts and breeches only. They had dispensed with coats, hats and waistcoats some time back as the climate had gradually changed. It seemed to Atticus that Delaney considered clothing in general an encumbrance and it was only a vestige of some politeness around the women which kept him covered. Something from his time in Africa perhaps...? This was the subject which fuelled Atticus’ imagination the most - the devil's back yard indeed. He would bide his time with that one too.

‘Yeah, they say dolphins are good luck. Guide a ship to safety,’ Atticus continued conversationally. ‘Never seen it meself. An’ I sailed with a right bastard once who liked eating ‘em,’ he added. He threw a glance at Delaney whose face was stone.

‘That’s as much use as I may have for them too. There is no such thing as 'good luck' Atticus.’

Secretly, Atticus had never had such a sense of forboding about a journey as he had about this one, and he viewed Delaney as nothing but a giant fucking albatross around everyone's necks.

‘Well, we're a superstitious lot, us sailors. Ain’t we?’

There was a short silence as the men peered up at Robert in the crow's nest. His thin, high voice drifted faintly down to them:

_I’m a deep water sailor just in from Hong Kong._

_If you give me some grog I’ll sing you a song_.

Delaney frowned but stayed silent. ‘That’ll be the chemist taught ‘im that,’ said Atticus and made a note to himself to pay the little singed shit a visit in the cabin where he was lurking.

‘Anyway, me dad told us a story about dolphins once. One of them...myths. Me and me sister, Brighton.’

Here, unexpectedly, Atticus had to stop speaking, his throat tightening. His sister. He had tried not to think too much about her and her squalid death at the docks, run through with a sword and left to die writhing on the ground. Though they had not been particularly close, he’d promised her a place on the Good Hope and a new life and to this end she'd thrown herself into becoming one of the League of the Damned. But their departure from London had been her departure from life. Now he could picture her round eyes and matching mouth as they’d listened to their father's tales as children.

To his surprise, Atticus was drawn from this recollection by the weight of Delaney's hand on his arm. There was some kind of recognition in his eyes... or maybe more likely that Atticus imagined it. Delaney gave a terse nod.

‘You want to tell me this story, yes?’

‘Yeah, why not?’

Atticus reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of flat, dried meat. He offered it to Delaney.

‘I’ve told you. No pork.’

Atticus shrugged and chewed thoughtfully on the pungent strip as he gathered together the strands of the half remembered story in his mind.

‘There were a Greek god who liked to walk amongst us humans. He were mischievous like that. Dionysus was his name. God of...wine, I think. And merry making. A god after me own heart. One time, he disguised himself as a man, wandered about on a shore somewhere.’

There was a shifting as Delaney stretched himself out on the deck, a low groan as tightened muscles tried to loosen. The sun continued to beat down, and both men's brows were beaded with sweat.

‘Some pirates spotted this handsome bastard poncing about on the shore and took ‘im to their ship. He must be a prince that they can ransom, they thought. But when they tried to tie him up, no ropes would bind him. They just fell away.’

Atticus could tell that Delaney was listening, although his eyes were closed and he was as still as death. There was a quality of alertness to him. He continued.

‘Now the navigator of that pirate ship were a clever man. He recognised something weren’t right and told the captain that this bloke must be a god. He could be Zeus himself, or Poseidon. _That’s_ why they couldn’t hold him with ropes. The navigator said they should worship him instead but the captain just laughed.’

Unfortunately, Atticus had only just remembered the fate of the captain in this tale and paused for a moment, his mind working desperately. _Too late now,_ he thought. _Well, h_ _e don't seem the superstitious sort._

‘So Dionysus turns himself into not only a lion, but a bear too and tears the captain to pieces. The rest of the crew jump for it overboard and get turned into dolphins on their way down. But the navigator, _he_ gets rewarded for his loyalty and is blessed by Dionysus, the god of wine and merry-making. And that..’ finished Atticus, grinning widely, ‘is why I became a navigator. And why the Dolphin Inn is called what it is. Just that one story.’

Atticus knew would never be seeing London or the Dolphin Inn again. That gathering place of all the earless, toothless vagabonds that lurked in dark underbelly of the city. This was an entirely new chapter for them all. And they were all, every last one of them, Delaney's beasts of burden, not dolphins swimming free of shackles. 

Delaney was stirring next to Atticus, that restless energy never allowing him to be still for long.

‘Fucking fairy tales, Atticus. I have no time to listen to fucking fairy tales.’

With that, Delaney got up abruptly and stalked off, his shirt stuck to his back with sweat. He paused, spinning round to jab a finger in Atticus' direction.

‘It is the captain in _this_ story who will become the lion and tear those who betray him to pieces.’

And then he was gone.

Atticus chuckled to himself. He opened his book up again. He must write that one down. Maybe he would tell it to Robert later. The boy's voice drifted down, determined and plaintive:

_A is the Anchor which holds a bold ship_

_B is the Bowsprit that often does dip...._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robert is singing a sea shanty called 'Blow The Man Down.'  
> and at the end, The Sailor's Alphabet.  
> Who remembers that Atticus' sister was called Brighton and was killed in the last episode? Not bloody me, I read it in the Taboo Wikia lol! ;) However, I put it in here as it's just another little detail of Atticus' own story...  
> The story of Dionysus and the dolphins was a great find as it seems to me to fit in well with both a reason for Atticus to become a navigator and the name of the pub he owned back in London. Plus I do love a good old tale within a tale! I couldn't help have Delaney have a bit of a macho tantrum about the fate of the captain in the story though...


	3. The Scarification Of James Delaney.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of how James got his Sankofa scarification. Possibly!

In the quiet of the bedroom, Lorna hesitated, her hand hovered above James’ back, not quite touching the skin but able to feel the strange heat rolling off it. His body temperature seemed to run higher than normal all the time, a furnace which burned perpetually. He lay with his back to her but he was awake, she knew from that quality of energy which thrummed in the air around him. The candle which burned on the nightstand next to the bed flickered as his breath disturbed it’s steady yellow flame.

Slowly and finally her hand came to rest – quite heavily - on his back, on the thick muscles of his upper back, where the skin was branded; puckered and stamped into that strange design. The symbols on his skin were partially submerged by the insubstantial light of the candle. She ran her finger over the raised marks and his shoulders tensed. A deep breath and then her voice carried the question out into the silence of the room.

‘This is a ... bird?’

There were beats of silence. Lorna waited, her hand stilled on him now.

'I believe it to be,' he answered finally.

He sat up in bed suddenly, swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the mattress. Still he faced away from her.

'Take the candle. Look closer.'

Lorna crawled across the bed to reach for the candle then kneeled behind the now silent man who hunched slightly to allow her a better view. It was a bird, it seemed – a skeletal representation, the bones of its wings spread wide above its skull, beak pointed downward – simple, yet unmistakable. And below it, an egg that the bird appeared to perch above. The skin was raised, reddened.

'I cannot remember them doing it. Only that it involved ...cutting. Ash, I believe, was rubbed into the wounds.'

He was lying. He remembered it all. In fact, James was struggling to keep the memories from overwhelming him entirely. He had lost track of how long he had hung in the tree, still wearing his East India Company uniform, as every transgression he had ever committed trickled slowly through his consciousness. There was a slow seep of blood from his injured left eye, filling the eye with gore and blinding him; the deep gouge inflicted as he was captured.The physical agony had receded almost entirely compared to the purest form of mental anguish he thought he ever had or ever would endure. And yet it had elevated him. It was necessary. For many hours he had tried to concentrate on the ticking of some insect which was perched near his ear, a whirring, clicking torture which he still dreamt about sometimes. And then somehow this sound was forever connected to the hammering of the nails into the ships hold - it sometimes started as the faint tapping insect sound and rapidly transmuted into a heavy metal on metal pound as the nails were driven in above the wail of the storm and the begging voices. Now he was able to push it away, but then, in the tree where he had been suspended, it became his entire world in which everything else was formless, shapeless.

'I was hung in a tree, by the arms. When they found me after the ship... They left me there for days. They expected me to die. It was a test to see if I would die.'

'How did you endure it?' asked Lorna.

She still kneeled behind him, not touching him, and found she could not tear her eyes away from the symbol on his back, for it must be a symbol. The world of James Delaney was infected with symbols, messages, portends. A complicated map of arcane meanings.

'I don't know. But I did.'

He felt his breath start to struggle to stay even, the claustrophobia of that African forest was closing on him once more, with its pricking fingers of heat, its damp flanks pressing in on him, its slow crawl into his mind.

Had he wanted to die? Yes and no. He had merely concentrated on continuing to physically exist while the horror of his mind had trapped him and taken him further down into an entirely self-made mental hell. If he ever became momentarily aware of the physical pain of what his body endured, the thirst, the ache, the unbearable strain, it only served to remind him he was still alive. He swung between those states: alive and yet dead, dead and yet alive. He swung between them still now. _Do I still wish to die? Yes and no_.

Many voices and faces had risen like steam from the earth and vegetation; his father, his mother, Zilpha, teasing his peripheral vision, taunting him with faint ever diminishing words. But also there came a form of perspicuity, a knowledge of what the narrative of his life had been leading up to until now. A newborn comprehension of how he must go forward and why, even in his understanding that he was now a dead man, that James Delaney no longer existed, he must continue to exist in that neither one thing nor the other state. It was that existence which would afford him the freedom he required. Such simple and yet ancient wisdom, that he must tread a path on a different level of awareness in order to understand what was important.

'And then?' came Lorna's voice from behind him, very close and clear.

'They came and cut me down. I was... almost gone. They took me to a hut. Someone fed me...'

How could he possibly ever convey the dream-like state he had entered into by then? And the wrenching out of it that had happened with his removal from the tree. Sudden invasion of the mash of vegetables which had been cajoled into his mouth, the water which spilled onto his parched skin. The choking and vomit when it wouldn't stay down and more food was pressed into his mouth after he had stopped retching. The visceral memory caused bile to rise now and he swallowed it down. He shook his head, blinking rapidly.

The bird. Sankofa. Receiving the marks had been an almost euphoric experience. At first two men had held him down on the floor of the hut while the ancient woman had crouched over him with her tools. But he had not struggled. The point of the heated blade, the thorns and the sharp stones, all wielded with precise skill, had created more than a just a deep physical impression on James. The dirt of the hut floor, the breathing of the old woman, the sputter of the fire she heated the blades on, the low murmur of the young men who watched; this was all there was in the world. Then the pure pain of the marking itself, a sharp clarity like nothing he had ever experienced before. The rubbing in of the ash, packing it into the wounds, the final step. His mind felt clear and empty.

The wounds had become infected later, of course, and he spent many days thrashing around in a fever, his back ablaze in agony.

‘I only knew later it was a bird, when I learned the language. I only saw it fleetingly... reflections. Until I came back here. I saw it on my skin properly. And I saw it in my mother’s room.’

It seemed easier for him to tell her with his back to her still. But when he turned to her Lorna could see the desperation in his eyes. _In his mother’s room? What does he mean_?

‘Where in the room, James?’ she asked warily.

‘I will show you. Come.’

Now he was all movement; pulling on britches, reaching for a lantern, holding out his hand to pull Lorna up from the bed. When he had found the bird, etched onto the stone fireback of the chimney in his mother’s room, it had shaken him hugely. He recognised it instantly but his mind had initially revolted from the notion of his mother on her hands and knees scraping the symbol into the sooty stone lining of the fireplace. So he had boarded the hearth back up, unable to fully process why the same symbol that had been branded onto his back had also been left by his mother.

Lorna noted his breathing, fast and harsh as though he had exerted himself.

‘Come,’ he said again.

Their descent down to Salish's room was swift. Lorna barely had time to orient herself before James was on his knees hauling at the boards on the fireplace, sending the planks of wood sailing into the room behind him where they clattered onto the floor. The dark gape of the empty fireplace was revealed and he thrust the lantern into it. His eyes were wide as though to pull what he saw into them greedily, to suck the darkness from the chimney place.

‘Look Lorna! It is there ...’ his hand roughly scruffed her neck as though she were a dog, forcing her head down to the hearth. Lorna gave a short cry, her hands automatically scrabbling at his to free herself as she desperately sought what James saw. But there was only the soot encrusted stone, a cold echoing draught.

‘I’m ..I'm sorry James, I don’t see it. Why do you think she would have known the same symbol? It is African is it not?'

‘You tell me,’ he said wearily and his hand left her neck to press his fingers to his eyes. The energy seemed to leave him and he sank to his knees, forehead pressed against the marble surround.

The Sankofa burned on his back. He would always go back and yet he would always be pushing forward. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lorna has a pretty minor role in this tale as the focus is on James' memories. I hope that's not too jarring.


	4. A Fight With A Bear In Chancery Lane.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is briefly mentioned that James Delaney had fought a bear in Chancery Lane as a young man. Also led several rebellions for 'bad custard'! This is my take on how that might have happened. Chancery Lane was and still is the gathering place of the legal profession in London.  
> Warning for brief description of masturbation and sex.

A Fight With A Bear On Chancery Lane

The other boys could feel it brewing – a buzz of exuberance in the air of the dining hall which made them snigger and jostle at one another. A low-level muttering had set up, rippling across the large hall which held the cadets of the venerable East India Company. Feeding time was always fraught with power dynamics: who sat where, who had to give up their meat to whom, certain boys always slapped down and pushed out. But this felt like a different level of barely suppressed anticipation. The older boys who supervised mealtimes also felt it, apprehension visible on their faces, as they patrolled between the long wooden tables. The source of the malevolent glee amongst the boys was known. Indeed, lately it was the same source each and every time it rose like effluvium within the academy.

James Delaney was sitting slightly apart from everyone else, as was his habit. Except for the odd, slight boy, Godfrey, who haunted Delaney's steps and was strangely tolerated by him. But even Godfrey would only sit near, not next to, the burly boy who had no friends nor even a favoured group within the school's complex hierarchy system of power. Not that Delaney was powerless, far from it. His talents extended across all the subjects taught and revered at the East India Company college. And in particular:

Musket: exceptional.  
Shipcraft: exceptional.  
Leadership: exceptional.

All the qualities which every boy longed to own and exploit in order to attempt the scrabble to the top of the miserable shitpile of command and which would perhaps make their existence less wretched. James exuded power and people gravitated to it.

Eyes darted towards James now, sly glances by some and outright staring by others. Godfrey, tense and distressed, was also stealing looks at James, who had been silently staring at his bowl of custard for some minutes.

James Delaney was indeed a law unto himself. Everyone knew, but could not prove, that it was Delaney who had tacked the rough note onto the notice board in the great hall a few days previously. It had survived long enough for all to see it, before one of the Masters had torn it down, outraged. A dressing-down at assembly had followed but by then the contents of the ragged note had passed into mythical status: 'THE CUSTARD SERVED BY THE COOK IS SUBSTANDARD AND WE WILL NOT TOLERATE IT ANY LONGER.' And yet here was the custard again, the same thin, lumpy slop as ever.

When the atmosphere in the dining hall was stretched so taut that it seemed it would finally snap like a bone under immense pressure, James made his move. Springing to his feet, he slammed his hands down hard on the table in front of him. The bowl jumped and overturned, the slimy mess of liquid spreading in a pool. James' voice was low, yet deep and carrying.

'This FUCKING custard is SHIT.'

'Delaney...' came the warning voice of one of the young corporals. Another scurried off in search of back up from the Masters who ate in their own comfortable dining room some way off.

'No.' James' head swivelled towards the corporal, who quailed slightly at the fierce gaze. 'It is shit and we will not tolerate it.' The rest of the hall was utterly silent, expectant.  
James felt the rage start to fill him properly now. It had coursed through him internally for several weeks, unnamed and unnameable and he was ready for it to take him on. A deep pleasure at the frenzy he knew awaited him made his face break into a grin that was more a grimace. But first he must channel it, reign it in and use his cunning to recruit the fools he needed to accomplish his plan.

'The fucking cook should be prosecuted for this custard.' A tittering set up amongst the spectators.

'NO! You fucking idiots. I mean it. I expect the custard he makes for the Masters is not the piss of whores is it?'

'No, I bet it isn't!' A voice rang out. There was another ripple of murmuring. James had learned quickly that exploiting the sense of injustice the boys felt about almost everything in the college, especially food, was easy and effective.

'Sit down Delaney! You need not eat the custard if it offends you!' The young corporal attempted to loom over the smaller figure of Delaney in order to domineer him back into his seat.

'It does _offend_ me. It is a fucking OFFENCE. Punishable by law. And I am going to Chancery Lane to seek out the services of a lawyer to prosecute the cook. WHO IS WITH ME?!' This last proclamation roared out and the custard bowl sent sailing out across the hall to smash into pieces against the wall; a muted cheer went up.

Several boys stood, their benches clattering over onto the floor; the same rough troublemakers who turned up at every fight. James nodded, he knew them well and they would serve his purpose with a thick-headed, mercenary loyalty. Perfect. He jerked his head at Godfrey, who shrunk back and shook his own head infinitesimally. James stared at Godfrey for a few seconds, then said quietly: 'Very well.' He patted the leather pouch containing coins which was tied to his belt and the small dagger hidden at the other side. 'I will see you again Godders.'

'You will not leave this building Delaney!' Mr Pillbury, the maths Master, skidded into the hall, wiping the last of the gravy from his mouth. But James and the four other boys were already muscling their way past. It was clear the man had left his cane behind as he reared back from them, hands empty.

'Roberts! You are already on a last warning! Morrison, Carter, Samuels! Think very carefully about where this will lead!'

As he left the building, James felt a deep exhilaration bloom, the frozen night air hitting his lungs. He reached into his pocket where he had secreted a bottle of cooking brandy stolen from the kitchen. It would do. The hall had erupted into a mad babble of voices as they departed, and he had glanced back at Godfrey, hunched and miserable on his own. He knew it would be bad for Godders while he was gone.

'Carter. Get us a carriage,' he barked at the thickset and ugly boy who giggled and wrestled with the other three, tumbling out onto the gravel pathway.

James had not actually planned further than this; he was outwith the orbit of the East India Company seminary for the time being and that was enough. Now he would simply seek pleasure and oblivion on the streets on London. He tossed back a quarter of the contents of the brandy bottle and felt the harsh liquid burn a track to his stomach. Out on the main thoroughfare a carriage was quickly procured.

In the cab he sunk back into the corner and continued to drink – the others did not dare ask to share. He had lapsed again into silence and he noticed the group glance uncertainly at him and each other as the driver enquired as to the destination. James roused himself. He must play the leader, the commander, to keep them steady and sure of him.

'Chancery Lane of course. Are we not going to have the fucking cook jailed?! We need a lawyer do we not?!'

This satisfied the other boys who whooped and hammered on the side of the carriage, their sense of purpose restored.

'Will lawyers offices be open at this time of night?' asked Samuels suddenly, a pock-marked, skinny boy who had attempted many times to insinuate himself into James' sphere.

'I think lawyers are never closed for business, Samuels, and even if their offices are, they will simply have moved to the nearest tavern. And that's where we will seek them.'

He marvelled at the dullard lack of intelligence in their belief that they were actually going to seek out a lawyer. James was sure that there would be as many taverns as lawyer's chambers on Chancery Lane and in that respect it was as good a destination in London as any. In fact, James had never personally set foot in Chancery Lane, haunt of the legal profession, and his cynicism was influenced by his father's disdain for lawyers and their ilk. Horace did indeed have a lawyer, Mr Thoyt, a small, greedy man who kept offices there. 'He lies like all lawyers, James.' Horace had proclaimed once. 'And how do I know? His lips are moving...' _And yet you also lie, Father_. James pushed the thought of his father away. For it would naturally lead to his mother, and Zilpha.

When the destination was reached, and the group of boys were disgorged onto the street and the driver paid, the night finally opened up to James. The lamp-lighter had lit up every street corner already, which seemed to make the contrast between the grand modern stone buildings and the more elderly crumbling brick and timber edifices more stark. But then London was nothing but a city of contrasts. The streets still thronged with people despite the late hour; every kind of person that existed in London seemed to be represented, from grand ladies to the small, ragged boys who darted between carriages to shovel up horse shit to sell on to farmers.

 And in the murky doorways, less well-lit than the street corners, there were the whores. James briefly considered a visit to one of these doorways, feeling the weight of his money in the pouch. Sometimes, in the confines of the college, his rage would turn to arousal, a thick cloying frustration, a clench in his balls, which made him grasp his cock in his hand in bed at night and pump it furiously until he spurted onto the rough blankets. He had fucked a whore already, down at the docks, lost his virginity to her, in fact. A young German whore called Helga, who had held him quite gently as he bucked and thrust, grinding himself desperately to climax inside her. Afterwards, he had sat and watched her silently as she washed herself. 'You are a strange boy,' she had said. 'I think I know your father.' No, he did not want that physical contact with anyone, on this night he wanted only to drink himself to oblivion.

James could see the uncertainty had crept back into the minds of his group of dull-witted associates. They hovered together in a dense clump, glancing about themselves in trepidation. He took another swig of the brandy.

'Come then, lads!' he bellowed. 'Let us find an Inn, I have coins that need spent on ale or brandy or both. Maybe it will be better spent on that than a lawyer, hm?'

The night then became a blur of taverns; of forcing through the stench and press of criminals and whores and lawyers in pubs where they screamed and jostled, indistinguishable from each other in the poorly lit interiors.

James drank steadily. He drank to drown out the voices which now were infiltrating his mind regularly. He drank to push his mother's death, alone in Bedlam, out of his mind. He had not even seen her grave. He drank to push Zilpha's brittle regard and disdain for him away – she had stopped writing to him, returned his letters to her unopened. All of his actions now were mindless, purposeless. He knew he would be sent to sea soon, his education was almost complete. His father would pay his way out of this latest indiscretion, just the same as he had the others. There were never real consequences for James, of any kind, and he continued to blunder through an existence he was increasingly disconnected from. He had tried mindless allegiance to the East India Company and its aims of conquering, subduing and acquiring and he knew he would slip back into that mind-set like an automaton. The sea would take him and he would do as he was bid.

James became aware of a dull, undulating roar from outside The Seven Stars, the tavern which the disparate group now occupied. He staggered to the door, curiosity piqued. Outside the pub, in a small grassy square, a bear was tied to a stake with a short iron chain. It was not a fully grown bear, but taller than most men and clearly exhausted, its teeth filed down and its claws removed. The bear was standing on its back legs in a defensive position but swayed with fatigue and pain, part of its muzzle torn away by the dogs which had been set upon it. The large crowd which had gathered round it bayed and jeered at the animal – some thrust sticks at it and it roared in frustration, trying to bat them away with useless paws. A man was leading two more dogs towards the animal to replace the first two which had worn themselves out, while his accomplice took bets from the crowd. It was not a question of if the bear would die, but how long it would take.

James felt a strong revulsion rise in him as he watched the animal's fear and confusion. How had it ended up here, in a street in London, to be torn to pieces in front of a mob of humans who screamed for its death? James felt bile come into his mouth suddenly and he spat it onto the ground. He pushed through the rabble and was in the centre of the clearing before he had even finished the thought of what he was going to do next. But he _did_ know what he was going to do next.

'Place your bets gentlemen,' he roared. 'I will fight this bear!'

The response was mixed, cheering and booing mingled. James could hear the agonised panting of the bear behind him. Time was running out.

'Get out of the fucking way you madman!' This from a gentleman, done up in finery, who had been prodding the bear with the silver tip of his cane. The rat faced man who held the dogs looked at James thoughtfully. James hissed at him: 'I will pay you!'

'You ain't gonna blame me if you get your face ripped off now are you?'

'Take it!' He thrust the leather pouch with the remaining money at the man, who shrugged and took it, instantly secreting it into his tatty greatcoat. He stepped back, dragging away the dogs, who were almost hysterical at the scent of the bear.

‘Go for it mate.’

James turned instantly and barged forward into the animal, knocking it off balance. As they fell to the ground together, the beasts grunt upon impact was close to James' ear. Its fierce animal stench filled his nose, its fur greasy in the grip of his fist, the heat of its body intense. He felt its muscles move under the dirty pelt, a desperate struggle to cling to life. James groped urgently for his dagger. The weakened bear had given up trying to bite or claw, it merely tried to right itself, get itself standing upright again. Finally, with the dagger gripped in his hand, James began to thrust the knife repeatedly into the bears chest. His arm became a piston and his own ragged breath was all he could hear, his head pressed against the bears neck. When movement had ceased, only James' chest heaved unevenly, his arm and face dripping in blood. He felt more bile rise and retched onto the ground next to the bears carcass. He lay panting and now completely sober again but with deep relief coursing through him. A kind of peace.

'Fucking unfair contest!' came a sudden indignant voice from the watching horde. ‘He had a knife!’

‘Cheat!’ another voice opined.

James looked down at the hand which still held the knife and was saturated with the blood and matted with the hair of the dead animal. He felt his body begin to shake as he scrambled to his feet. When he spun to face the crowd, his face feral and smeared with gore, they fell back from him, subdued and cowed at the sight of the man who had slain the bear.

‘I killed this animal with my own hands. Not with dogs or a gun. A quick death!’

The sombre faces of the Company boys stared back at him from the outer edges of the crowd.

‘You fought a bear, Delaney,’ the awed voice of Samuels rang out. ‘You fought a bear and you won!’

James dropped to his knees next to the corpse of the bear. The crowd were starting to disperse, losing interest. He threaded his hand into the bloody fur and his eyes slowly closed. For a few short moments he felt he had done a penance of some kind and accordingly a brief absolution was visited upon him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think an unchannelled James Delaney was probably a very destructive thing! I imagine him to be charismatic as a boy but disinterested in belonging to any particular clique or faction. But he still knows how to manipulate and gather people when he needs them. I wonder about the idea of Delaney as a 'loner' in the traditional sense. He is a loner in his sense of purpose and what he wants but requires people around him to achieve it, so I have him surround himself with the other boys in this story. He uses but is also used himself.
> 
> Bear baiting was still going on in London at this time. The Seven Stars is a real pub in Holborn, London. It's one of the oldest in the city and one of the few buildings which survived the Great Fire Of London.


	5. James And Lorna Check Provisions.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James pays a visit to the hold on the Good Hope for some private time amid a ship simmering with repressed sexual tension. This assumes James and Lorna are already together.  
> Warning for sexual content.

James had been watching Lorna intently for several weeks aboard the Good Hope. Everywhere he looked, there she was. Now her neck bent over a book with Robert, now her hands hauling at rigging with French Bill, now her bare feet and legs planted squarely on the wooden planks of the deck while she peeled vegetables with Pearl. The world had narrowed to the pinpoint of his lust for her and at times he could think of and see nothing but Lorna Bow. But James had not been anywhere near Lorna's sleeping quarters, nor she to his. The initial phase of their journey had been chaotic and haphazard during which they had both been intent only on the business of survival; Lorna almost quite literally, in recovering from a gunshot wound to her shoulder and James in keeping the damned boat afloat. Sex was far from the agenda.

The demands of the ship, the crew, were fucking endless, James realised. Petty fights and squabbles about who would do the cooking, who had the best bunk, who had more than their fair share of rum. This was the trouble when half of the crew had never actually sailed before. Additionally, the presence of Pearl and Lorna at times created a stifling atmosphere of repressed sexual desire amongst a ragged crew of men not well practiced in social graces around women. Godfrey was eyed with distrust, unable to be neatly categorised by the men who sensed something different about him. James was aware of Godfrey's uneasy misery which occasionally slipped into misplaced frustration; needling Atticus with a sharp tongue on his ability to navigate or ranting about Bill's terrible ukulele playing.

Meanwhile, the Chemist, like a scorched Lord of Misrule, teasing Pearl, whispering in the ear of Robert and quoting Shakespeare at Lorna, enraged almost everyone. Especially James. He’d been acutely aware of Cholmondeley's interest in Lorna back in London and now being forced to endure it in such close quarters was almost unbearable. Watching them pore over books of plays together, Lorna's obvious enjoyment of the Chemist's knowledge of the works was infuriating. James had no use for Shakespeare; in fact, he hated it intensely.

‘This is one of my favourite quotes, Ms Bow,’ Cholmondeley said in a sardonic half whisper. ‘Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and whip as madmen do and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too...’

Cholmondeley’s careless glance at James who stood nearby at the ship's wheel caused him to tighten his grip on the wood until he felt that it would splinter under his hand. Cholmondeley had noticed the looks between James and Lorna and James knew it. The little prick was taunting him in his own inimitable way.

Yet despite his own deepening rage James attempted to affect deaf ears to the pettiest of the quarrels or sent in an irritated Atticus to read the riot act. He was exhausted himself from the events back in London and it was easier to try to shrug off the whining of the peevish and disaffected crew than to address it. It seemed to take forever to allot tasks to those crew members who lacked the necessary skills to be truly useful in the actual mechanics of sailing the ship. In the end, it took a fist fight between the normally even-tempered Atticus and Bill over some real or imagined slight to do with Bill stealing his ration of rum for James to finally take control of the situation.

‘We work as a crew or we fucking die. It’s that simple. Now if you wish to survive - and I have no intention of dying yet - then you will do as I tell you. Alright?’

The response of the reluctantly gathered crew was muted and James noted Cholmondeley’s burnt face lift in amusement at the headmaster tone he was having to adopt. Nevertheless a sullen acquiescence settled over the crew at his orders: Pearl became cook, the Chemist took charge of the daily task of operating the bilge pump in the hull, Godfrey helped Bill maintain the sails and other similar jobs and Robert officially became cabin boy and lookout although this was a role he'd been quietly carrying out since the start of the journey.

And Lorna... James could see she was a little lost. Her injury prevented her from undertaking any really strenuous jobs, although she tried, grimacing in pain. Robert had gravitated towards Cholmondeley, more interested in his stories of chemical prowess than in Lorna teaching him his basic letters. Pearl was distant and polite with her, even at times sarcastically dropping a curtsey at Lorna which made her cringe and redden. And Godfrey was too wrapped up in his own misery to notice Lorna's attempts at friendship with him. James was at once deeply frustrated and yet troubled by her lack of place on the ship. However, it went unacknowledged as did all the other emotions that raged like a tempest on the Good Hope. A fog of bad temper and begrudged hard work with no play settled over the ship. Although at least a routine of sorts had finally begun which kept things ticking over.

It was at this point the redolent stench of sexual desire began to once more permeate the very grain of the ship's wood. So when James stumbled upon Pearl and Bill one evening, her head bobbing between Bill's thighs when he should have been on anchor watch, he was trapped between irritation at the insubordination and a clench in his own bollocks at the sight of such enthusiastic sexual activity.

‘This ship is not a fucking whorehouse!’ he roared at the couple who hastily drew apart, Pearl indecently wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘For fuck's sake! Get back to your duty!’

‘Sorry Sir,’ Pearl dropped a curtsey at him and retreated, smirking.

‘She didn’t ask for no payment! She wanted to...’

‘Just ...fucking keep your cock in your trousers when you are supposed to be on watch!’

It was this atmosphere of smothered lust which led to James catching Lorna as she passed him in the galley the next day. He pushed her against the wall, biting at her collar bone and pressing hard kisses along her neck but she shoved him away for fear of Pearl or Godfrey or fucking Atticus happening upon them. Some notion that it would create imbalance or resentment among the crew if they were to know she and James were ... whatever they were. It had never been named by either of them.

_Fucking, then, if they knew we were fucking when none of them are... And yet it seems they are the ones who are and we are not.._

He groaned softly and released her, his hands clenched by his side.

‘James, I want to... I miss you and..’ she swallowed, shaking her head. ‘It seems wrong.’

‘I am the captain Lorna and I will do what I want.’ He was aware how petty it sounded but didn’t care, his mind clouded by desire. He could see her shaking. Her eyes travelling over his face, resting on his mouth, her pupils enlarged, her breathing fast and shallow. Her undertaking to be the moral compass amidst their mutual desire was not sitting easily with her, he could plainly see.

He felt himself start to grow hard against the rough cloth of his breeches.

‘I am helping Pearl.’ She held out a basket of filthy vegetables.

‘Very well.’ He moved aside and then they both silently made their way onto the deck.  
Once there, Lorna had settled with the basin of vegetables at her feet. The cradle her skirts created between her open legs held those which she had already peeled. Her bare feet flexed on the rough wood as she moved to pick up the small knife she used as her tool. She was taking deep breaths to calm herself, James noted. His eyes travelled from her feet to her strong calves; he could almost feel them where they’d fastened around his thighs to pull him deeper into her.

His subsiding erection hardened anew, and he rubbed his hand over his jaw compulsively as he struggled to regulate his own breath. It was becoming almost unbearable. He looked around the ship – all seemed busy, Atticus at the wheel was whistling almost merrily, the boy in the crow’s nest as usual. Godfrey and Bill attempting a conversation about God knows what, it seemed to involve the ukulele. The chemist was nowhere to be seen but he generally slept at this time of day. But they all receded to less than mere motes of dust drifting in the air because James Delaney could think of nothing but the raging hard-on that looking at Lorna’s bare legs had given him. He felt almost weak with lust and he had to do something about it.

‘I'm going to the hold to check we have sufficient provisions. You will all...carry on what you’re doing.’

Pearl’s face, puzzled, looked up from her basket of turnips.

‘Isn’t that part of my job, sir?’ she asked.

‘I will do it this time. I need to check the gunpowder barrels.’

Ah the gunpowder – the ever present threat of the entire ship being blown sky fucking high if the barrels were not secured properly, if the powder was exposed to even some tiny spark or damp, or jostled even slightly and a myriad of other demands the fucking stuff had to not just randomly explode. James felt he didn’t care if the ship was blown to smithereens at times and certainly not at this particular moment in time.

In the gloomy hold, James was quick to wrestle down his breeches, just enough to free his now hard as iron cock. Grasping it in his fist he leant his head on the wall in front of him, bracing himself against it with his free arm. He noted with some amusement the words some bored or pious sailor must have scratched into wood there at his eye level: Domini Non Sum Dignus. _Lord, I am not worthy._

‘No I am not fucking worthy,’ he muttered to himself.

James drew his hand roughly, almost carelessly over his rigid length, teeth clenched and shoulders tense as he hunched over himself in the darkness. He had grown expert at masturbation these last weeks, a state he had not been in since adolescence. Almost nightly in his cabin, he would slide down onto his back and brace himself against the narrow bunk as his hand worked his cock to a tense, fierce orgasm. There was no sophistication, no drawing out of the pleasure just a fast, rough race to spill himself while images of Lorna skipped at the edge of his mind’s eye. Here in the hold, he invoked her again, the feel and taste and smell of her becoming an ever receding memory that he dredged up. He intended it to be a similarly fast pursuit of his orgasm as his night time sessions were - just something he had to do in order to have a clear head once more. And so his hand moved fast over his own flesh, working the length of his cock expertly, quiet grunts punctuating the forceful movements. Then suddenly there was a hushed voice from behind him.

‘James?’

He recognised Lorna’s voice instantly but did not rush to respond to her. Then deliberately slowly he turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. He held her gaze, his eyes hard, slowing his strokes down, his arm which leaned on the wall tense and corded with veins. Her eyes ranged down to his arm and hand where he gripped his cock, over the semi exposed hard muscles of his arse that his breeches clung to and his thick, taut thighs. He had no intention of stopping.

‘You will watch me Lorna,’ he ground out. ‘You keep your eyes on me.’

He felt a wave of cruelty swell in him, a desire to have her want him and not be permitted to have him. And he also felt her initial shock wane with her realisation of what he was doing. A quite different atmosphere now developed in the close confines of the dusty hold. She moved round to face him, there was silence but for his increasingly harsh breathing.

‘James,’ her voice came low and sweet to his ears. His strokes remained slow and deliberate, he was quite prepared to draw it out now, for his own torture as well as hers. Her own hands moved restlessly across her skirts as though she couldn’t keep them still.

‘James, will you let me...’

‘You will watch me Lorna,’ he repeated, voice harsh. ‘You will not touch me.’

He felt sweat begin to bead on his forehead, gather between his shoulder blades. He wanted nothing more than to let her.. do what? Anything. Anything which meant she put her hands, her mouth, on his body. That she would work him to the frenzy only she could. But the part of him which wanted them both to suffer, would not allow it. His strokes became harder, and faster. Their eyes were now fixed on one another.

‘James sometimes I too...touch myself.’

And it was this, those few words, that tipped him over the precipice. The knowledge that she too fought herself and her desire for him and that she could not stop herself seeking out pleasure with her own hands and fingers in the absence of him. Ironically it was one of the most intense orgasms he’d ever had and he had to rest his spinning head on his arm awhile as his hoarse panting subsided. He became aware slowly of Lorna's hands running over his arse, her mouth at his neck, murmuring indistinct words and biting the thick flesh there.

However the harsh voice of Atticus echoing down into the hold abruptly broke the spell.

‘Well, James my boy, ‘av we run out of pickled fish then? Is Lorna helping you fucking count ‘em?!’

‘You’d do well to fuck right off Atticus or I will stuff one into your trap!’

James pulled himself away from Lorna, held her at arms length from himself.

‘Now, you will visit my cabin tonight, hm? And we will remedy this state of affairs properly.’

There was no question now of an enforced abstinence continuing on the Good Hope and they both knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cholmondeley is quoting from Shakespeare's As You Like It.


	6. Pearl and Lorna Compare Notes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl and Lorna have a revealing discussion about James Delaney's past dealings with Helga's whorehouse. 
> 
> Lest we forget that James Delaney is in fact capable of being a complete bastard.
> 
> Warning for description of slightly rough and unromantic sex.
> 
> Thanks to Wysiwygot for the early feedback and guidance on this chapter.

The cramped galley of the Good Hope had been the scene of many quarrels. Up until job roles on the ship had recently been properly established, a rogues gallery of reluctant cooks had rotated through the galley, perhaps the most ineffectual being French Bill who had attempted to heat ships biscuits in the temperamental stove. This had resulted in a slap across his head from Atticus and batch of ships biscuits which totally disintegrated upon being hastily removed from the oven. The hard, plain biscuits made from rough flour and water were virtually inedible at the best of times without also being semi-cremated. 'You don't fucking heat them up, Bill, you stupid bastard! You should know that!' barked Atticus. Now Pearl had been awarded the title of cook and initially at least, she tried to take her new position seriously.

However cooking aboard the Good Hope was in many ways not a job of great skill. There were the biscuits of course. Salted beef and pork (never to be offered to Mr Delaney of course). Oatmeal to mixed to a thick coarse porridge. A hard cheese that had developed a strange white bloom which Pearl had to scrape off. Some dirty vegetables which would hopefully not go green and poison them all; turnips and the like. And fish when they were caught over the side of the ship – Robert was particularly good at the still patience required for this. Of course endless barrels of rum too. Atticus was an effective if unimaginative Victualler for the Good Hope.

Pearl's experience of cooking back at the dockside whorehouse in London had been minimal. There had been a cook installed there, an aged whore named Jeannie whose skills had graduated slowly from the dark, curtained beds to the kitchen, where she prepared surprisingly good and wholesome meals. Helga was a shrewd businesswoman but also sentimental in many ways – Jeannie had sheltered the young German girl under her own considerable wing back in the day it seemed and Helga therefore returned the favour. Pearl felt a distinct pang of grief when she thought of both Helga and Jeannie. Both lost in the country of the past. Now she was trapped on a ship with a bunch of savage men and a hoity-toity actress. And all the men were savages, even the ones who pretended they weren’t, like the chemist.

Pearl was deep in these thoughts when Lorna discovered her standing over the vat of breakfast oatmeal she was preparing. Lorna had slipped out of James’ cabin silently after dressing quickly. She intended to help the girl with her duties in the kitchen.

Lorna was aware that she and Pearl had reached an impasse. She had finally grown tired of attempting to extend the hand of friendship to the standoffish girl who seemed suspicious of any overtures. However Lorna had also decided that establishing some kind of working relationship at least was preferable to outright hostility developing instead.

‘Can I help you Pearl?’

‘No I’m sure I’ll manage,’ the girl replied peevishly, dropping one of her sarcastic curtseys at Lorna.

‘Pearl, you don’t need to do that, I’m not a...’

Suddenly James was also in the small space of the galley, dressed only in a grubby shirt, legs and feet bare, black banded thighs visible from under the garments’ tatty hem.

‘What are you doing?’ he rasped at the women.

I’m making the breakfast sir...er, captain,’ said Pearl. She stared at him then her gaze dropped away. But there was no shyness there, more a defiance, Lorna noticed, almost irritation. Pearl wanted him to go.

‘Yes, good, carry on then. Lorna?’

‘I’m helping Pearl, James,’ she replied, puzzled at his appearance in an area of the ship he normally had no interest in and avoided. His eyes shifted between the two women, but he made no move to leave. Lorna frowned. Was there some kind of... _awkwardness_ in the atmosphere? He glared around the galley as though it was an uncharted foreign land.

‘When I woke you were gone.’ A vulnerability to this statement, despite the toneless quality to his voice.

‘Well I’m here James, as you can see.’

‘Hm.’

‘We'll let the crew know when it’s ready, James.’

Lorna turned away from him and when she glanced back he was gone. Lorna realised that Pearl was staring at her, her expression both uncertain and slightly mischievous.

‘He's a strange one isn’t he?’ she said, picking up a wooden spoon and moving towards the stove.

 _Strange_? It had been a while since Lorna had considered how he may appear to other people. Being caught in the orbit of James Delaney seemed to throw standard judgement and morals askew and Lorna was no different in that respect.

‘He is perhaps uncommon, yes,’ Lorna confirmed.

‘Don't you find him a bit of a demon in his fucking, Miss? It were only the once with me but...’

Lorna's eyes widened as she took this information in. _James had used the services of Pearl?_! Caught off guard, she replied:  
‘Well, he can be a bit.. forceful at times, yes. But not always. You have had relations with James?’

Lorna became aware of the ache in her inner thighs from James’ hands, his fingers. _Forceful, yes, at times._ She felt her face redden. She had no idea what her made her tell Pearl such a thing. There was something disarming about her, in her clear blue eyes.

‘Forceful!?’ spluttered Pearl. ‘He gave Helga a terrible water infection, she said. Ready to go again almost the minute he’d finished, Miss! Oh he had me ages ago. Before you I’m sure.’

 _Helga too! A water infection?_! Lorna's head was reeling slightly from the unwanted information she was being forced to process.

‘Ah, Helga too!?’ she managed to say. She stared into the bubbling pot of gelatinous mess which formed the crew's oatmeal breakfast.

‘Years ago, Miss. She popped his cherry! Was a regular punter. But he got... difficult, unmanageable, like they sometimes do. I hope he pays you well. He were never stingy with his coin anyway.’

‘No Pearl it’s not like that. I’m not a..’ Lorna hesitated.

‘A whore?’ said Pearl sharply. ‘Of course not, Miss.’

‘Or a courtesan.’

‘Same thing,’ she said sullenly and Lorna could not help but smile at this sting which Pearl had deservedly administered to her.

‘Yes it is, you’re right. But I’m not a whore. James and I are...’

‘Oh,’ said Pearl. ‘You’re stepping out with him, Miss?’ _The girl did a good line in sarcasm, surely_ , thought Lorna. But she determined to stay calm. _Calm, pretty, certain, fragrant_. Her mantra in the face of challenging circumstances. She took a deep breath.

‘Well, yes I suppose we are...please call me Lorna.’

‘My mum always said I should have been an actress. I can read a bit too you know.’ Pearl said suddenly.

That same defiant look she had aimed at James earlier was now directed at Lorna. And then Lorna suddenly realised that she _had_ noticed Pearl watching with interest when she and Cholmondeley were looking over books together. Certainly it was mainly James’ irritation which she had been more aware of but now she cursed herself for not including Pearl more.

‘It must have been a very hard life for you Pearl? On the docks?’

Pearl wondered how this fancy, grand woman with her silly, feathered hats would ever be able to even begin to understand the safety and friendship which the whorehouse had offered Pearl. Yes, there was the endless, tedious sex with smelly, rough men from all walks of life but Pearl was _looked after_ there. By Helga, by the other women. That’s one thing Helga had demanded from her troupe of whores – loyalty to one another.

Before that Pearl had been whoring on the streets, in the doorways, alone; the fastest route to ending up strangled in the Thames sooner or later. With Helga, she had a roof over her head, good, hot food and money to buy herself the odd pretty bonnet. And sometimes she even went to the theatre. Not to see the likes of the famous Lorna Bow of course and always in the cheap seats but still...

So Lorna Bow would never understand the importance of their nightly gatherings, to share beer and oysters; to shriek and cackle over the worse of the punters that day. The men who needed spanked to be able to come, the ones who had to pretend to be pirates or kings or be tied up and humiliated before they could reach their sexual Valhalla. The ones like Old Horace Delaney, who plodded away like an ancient horse on its way to the knacker’s yard or the ones who only had to catch sight of a whores thigh and spill their load.

And then of course, the ones to be wary of. This is when Pearl had first heard the name of James Delaney. Helga used him as a warning to the younger girls, the ones just starting out. He had first appeared as a youngster, brash and overconfident, deposited at the whorehouse by his father with instructions to ‘sort the boy out.’ He had chosen Helga, herself young and relatively inexperienced. But Delaney had taken Helga and almost worn her down; pushing her physical and mental boundaries further with each visit. An insatiable appetite for... Helga would never fully elaborate on details, something about ‘blood play’ as she called it. And she had been dazzled by his undeniable beauty; the deceptively innocent face with its beestung lips, the hard, muscular body which she watched develop further with every passing month. He would whisper his secrets to Helga and then in just the same sweet, low voice tell her he would kill her if she ever told them to anyone. She was the receptacle for all the unfathomable depths of rage in James Delaney, which he poured into her unabated.

But when the man in the long dark coat and high hat appeared at the whorehouse and asked Pearl if she was free for business, how could she have possibly known it was the same man whose return to London was being whispered about in every filthy alley from Wapping Wall to Fleet Street. He stood implacable and curiously motionless in the bedroom.

‘And your name is..?’

‘Pearl sir.’

He nodded.

‘I want you to pull down the top half of your dress. Do not remove the dress.’

Pearl was used to all kinds of requests and this was entirely tame; she complied, unabashed, of course, at standing before him with breasts bared. She had undertaken re-enactments of any number of scenarios with customers, and had long since lost curiosity about why she was asked to do the things she was. She was pleased she would not get cold.

‘The bed sir?’

She indicated politely towards the large, untidy bed, covers still rumpled and stained from her last customer. He did not answer and Pearl watched his eyes range over the room and then settle on the empty barrel standing next to the bed which served as a form of bedside table. The faded letters on it were still visible though: Delaney Trading Company Finest Brandy. On it sat only an extinguished candle. He didn’t answer but removed his tall black hat.

 _Oh he’s bloody handsome, in a strange kind of way_ , thought Pearl, squinting at his shuttered face in the half-light of the room. Guarded eyes swept around the room once more. _But then handsome is as handsome does_ , she mused; a saying Pearl found was rarely confirmed in her line of work. And she had a notion this man was not a particularly benevolent force in the world. Now he shrugged off his coat and laid it on the bed with the hat.

‘And what’s your name sir?’

She wouldn’t normally ask but then a punter wouldn’t normally have asked her name either and she was not without manners.

‘Mm. You see my name on that barrel there,’ he replied, removing his thick leather gloves swiftly.

Before the logical part of Pearl's brain had time to make the connection there was a sudden change in the energy of the still man – he jostled her roughly towards the barrel and pushed her over it, sending the candle clattering to the floor, held her down, hand hard, splayed on the flesh of her back and she felt the movement of him loosening his breeches. There was one long, hard stroke of the same hand down the bare skin of her back while he deftly bundled up the skirts of her dress. He kicked her legs apart and then he was deeply inside her with no preamble, the hand which had swept down her back now moved to grip the back of her neck firmly. There was a lull in movement again and Pearl shifted slightly to further accommodate his entry into her. Glancing over her shoulder she saw his face was entirely shut down; eyes closed, jaw tense, chest heaving. She attempted a wiggle of her hips to entice him into movement.

‘Be still.’ His voice was low and flat.

‘Oh I will, Sir,’ Pearl said in a breathy whisper.

‘There is no need to play the fucking temptress with me either. Do not talk.'

Pearl normally knew when she needed to use her acting skills; when to play the coquette, when a few moans and writhing might get her an extra coin or two, and she knew when it didn’t matter. She knew then without a single doubt it would mean nothing to James Delaney, who she had now identified this dark, intense man as being.

So she simply nodded and gripped the sides of the barrel.

His fucking of her was hard and spare. Short, rough thrusts which rocked her against the splintered wood, forcing her breath out in gasps. His grip on her neck tightened, not enough to cut air off but certainly enough to prevent her moving at all. He began to mutter, quietly, with each thrust into her and Pearl realised it was some strange, unknown language which fell from his lips. Pearl had been privy to men's orgasms approaching in many languages but _this_ , this was not one she had ever heard before. He was a man who was not really here, Pearl realised, in this room with her. He was somewhere else entirely, _with_ someone else entirely. The words continued, guttural and stilted, a low, lyrical incantation which finally ceased with a deep groan as he spilled himself into her.

The weight of his body was suddenly pressed across her back which, despite herself, Pearl could not help savouring as it warmed her chilled skin; the man seemed to burn at a higher temperature than most. He rested there for a brief moment and then there was a not entirely unkind squeeze of her shoulder as he withdrew himself from her. No more words were spoken, just the rattle of the coins he placed next to her on the barrel. Then he was gone. Pearl righted herself and straightened her dress. So that was the Devil Delaney. She knew she had got off lightly judging by Helga’s tales of his past appetites. He had used her as a depository, no more nor less, as Pearl was accustomed to. She knew he would not be back. She went to the basin to wash him from her flesh.

 

* * *

 

‘Hard at the docks? Hm, it could have been worse.’ Pearl did not feel like elaborating to Lorna whose eyes were full of curiosity and sympathy. Not yet.

She began to ladle the greyish slop into bowls.

‘Maybe we can look at some of my books together later, Pearl?’

Pearl glanced at the pretty woman, who she could see now was trying very hard to be nice to her. Pearl was not sure she would ever trust anyone again now Helga was gone but she did know that she felt a sort of pity for Lorna, a unsettling feeling of wanting to look after her maybe. Because of him, because of James Delaney.

‘Yes maybe,’ Pearl agreed. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face Lorna properly.

‘You will be careful, Miss... Lorna? Won’t you? I have heard such very bad tales about him.’

‘Of course,’ said Lorna briskly. ‘He’s really not the monster people make him out to be you know.’

Pearl recognised that compulsion in Lorna, to somehow redeem the demon in him. Helga too had spoken of it, in her counselling of the young ones, the belief that could develop that there is some core of good in even the most terrifying men.

 _Some men are on a journey to hell they cannot return from,_ she had said, _you must not allow yourself to be taken with them._

And yet here they all were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to show James Delaney in a slightly different light here. Now obviously my Lorna (and me of course!) find him intensely attractive but I think Pearl is quite immune to his charms and that's definitely a good thing, especially for Lorna's sake!
> 
> Apologies for the mention of cystitis - blame wysiwygot for that ;) Another one of our conversations led to that..


	7. A Band Of Thieves: French Bill and Atticus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of French Bill, his past and how him and Atticus got to know one another...

The wind had dropped away entirely and a veil of calm drifted over the Good Hope after the ship set anchor amidst a small archipelago of uninhabited islands. French Bill was once more assigned to anchor watch, he had not yet been forgiven his indiscretion with Pearl. Bill knew his surly captain would ensure that he had more than his fair share of the long nights spent trying to stay awake on watch as the rest of the ship slept. It was worth it in Bill's opinion and he smiled to himself behind his thick black beard at the memory of Pearl's warm mouth on him.

French Bill was not a man accustomed to looking up; he kept his eyes down generally, a habit of a lifetime. But tonight the unusually clear sky invited his attention upon the stars which blinked and glittered in their dark cradle.

Atticus had pointed out a few stars and constellations to Bill in the past and he'd retained enough of that information to recognise some of them now as he peered up into the black blanket of the sky. Polaris; the North Star, the brightest star in the sky, pointed at by the constellation The Plough. _See that star, Bill. That way is England... Always England. You follow it home my friend. The North Star will always take you back towards our fucking godforsaken country._ Bill knew it would be more complicated than that but he couldn't help be impressed at Atticus' ability to navigate courses using only the night sky and the strangely delicate and complicated instrument he called a sextant. Well, none of them would ever be going back to London now. Forget _those_ directions, they would lead only to the end of a rope and stretched necks for all of them.

Besides, Bill had left nothing of worth in London, nothing that he would be prepared to go back for anyway. He was fully intent on adopting the nomad life, that of an itinerant. Before, he'd always been the one left behind. Not this time.

 

* * *

 

‘Your name is William Dubois,’ his mother would say to him sometimes, holding him in front of her, his chin grasped in her hand. ‘That’s your name and no-one can take it away from you.’ 

But people did take his name away from him. He was rarely William, often French Bill and usually just Bill.

His mother was a whore. Bill realised this early on in his childhood and he also realised it meant he would never know who his father was, even if his mother pretended she did.

‘A French sailor, William. Very handsome. He played the ukulele so well and had a fine voice. Dark hair, almost black. Like yours.’

She would smile at him through her gin haze, eyes blurry, her mouth wet and loose with drunkenness. She did have a ukulele, a well worn and badly tuned instrument which she presented proudly to him. Bill remained incurious about his father but he did attempt to learn how to play the ukulele himself. He spent hours plucking away at the instrument in the room he and his mother lived in tucked down one of the slum streets near the docks. His mother worked on the streets. There was no protective shelter of the whorehouse for her and eventually the hazardous conditions of sexual commerce on the streets of London claimed her life as it had many before her. And so Bill was left behind by his murdered mother.

Now French Bill's childhood career as a mudlark began. He became intimately familiar with the mud of London. That claggy, foetid layer of clay that lay atop all of London’s surface, clinging to boots and the wheels of carriages, but most of all gathered on the foreshore of the Thames. Elsewhere the thick London clay was put to use, made into bricks to fuel the building of the ever expanding greedy city but on the banks of the Thames it only trapped things. Bits of wood and coal. Metal and bones. Pottery shards, some centuries old. It claimed the bodies of the murdered and the suicides which that great silver snake, the Thames, spewed out along with carcasses of animals, and treated them just the same. It was through this detritus that French Bill would pick, part of a band of ragged children who fought over the offerings of the river.

Mudlarks they were called; or sometimes water rats. Their entire existence was collecting those pieces of rubbish which might yield any value, eyes perpetually cast downwards to the tide of mud as it deposited its filthy treasure at their feet. Bill slept in a stable which he crept into at night, lulled to sleep by the sweet smell of the hay and the warm breath of dozing horses. If he was lucky and quick he would wash at the water trough before anyone caught him but mostly he didn’t. They all stank, the mudlarks. Stank to high heavens with a thick tideline of grime on their necks, wrists, ankles. Clothes were a strange mish-mash of cobbled together garments from all over, sometimes stolen from bodies stumbled over on the foreshore.

Bill had a sudden sharp memory of a religious man, a parson perhaps, coming down to the foreshore to speak to the ragged band of children. The man wrinkled his nose at the smell of Bill and Bill had retained enough memory of his time as a cared for and clean child to feel offended by this.

‘Where do you live, child?’ he had asked. Bill’s eyes were only on the bread the man held wrapped in a cloth.

‘London, sir.’

‘And where is London, young man?’

Bill could smell the bread. Maybe this stupid man was lost?

‘London is in England, sir. And England is in London,’ he added quickly, anticipating the next question. For those forgotten children, London was the only world they would know, and so it was everywhere all at once to them.

‘Have you heard of Jesus Christ, child?’

‘I’ve heard of him, maybe once. I don’t right know who he is though and I don’t particular care..’ Bill was intent only on the bread and the man finally gave it to him, shaking his head sadly.

The mudlarks of London were mostly boys, although the odd toughened girl sometimes joined their ranks, and the rules were simple; if you found it on the ground, it was yours. It didn’t matter if it was someone else’s first, if it was left unattended it was fair game. They all understood this but in particularly lean times it didn’t stop fights breaking out. The troupe which Bill belonged to were five children in total, all boys and orphans like him. There was an uneasy alliance between them which was tested regularly by the effects of hunger and jealousy at what the other fellow had managed to find.

A short, stocky boy took to appearing on the foreshore; older than most of them, in shabby but serviceable clothes, with messy brown hair and a crooked smile. At first he watched from a distance, lounging on one of the many wharves where the endless imports of goods were unloaded and swallowed up into the surrounding streets or into nearby warehouses. Here came tea, china, cotton and pepper from the East Indies and rum, coffee, sugar and cocoa from the West Indies. North America offered tobacco, corn rice and oil and the Baltic states iron and linen, hemp and tallow. But apart from the odd audacious attempt at pilfering by the mudlarks, these goods were as far off to them as the crown jewels were in their distant prison at the Tower of London.

One afternoon the boy finally approached Bill as he was sitting on the shingle at the river embankment. Bill was scuffing at the pebbles with his foot, dried blood around his nose and the bloom of a black eye from a fight with a boy who had stolen Bill’s ukulele. He had retrieved it after a tussle and now kept it strapped to his side with some rope under his threadbare coat. He knew he would have to sell it soon and it was a miracle he had kept it so long. The boy sat close by to Bill.

‘I’m Atticus,’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘You’re French Bill ain't you?’

‘William Dubois.'

‘That your Sunday name is it?’

Bill didn’t answer.

Atticus scooped up some of the worn, muddy pebbles and trickled them between his hands.

‘What if this were all gold, eh?’

Bill said nothing, his dark eyes focussed on the ever shifting water. He would let the boy talk, nothing more.

‘You dont give much away do ya? But I can tell you have deep thoughts.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘In here.’

Bill looked sharply at the older boy. He threw a handful of shingle at the water and it hit it with a hiss.

‘You don't know me!’

‘I know enough because I’ve been watching you.’

‘I know you have. I seen you.’

Atticus nodded, there was approval in his eyes. _Good_! that jerk of his head seemed to say.

‘You need to keep your eyes peeled around here. This lot, they need rules,’ Atticus said, waving a hand at the other boys who were watching suspiciously from nearby.

‘There is rules,’ Bill retorted. But he felt the ukulele pressing into his side under his coat and knew that there weren't, not really, and not enough for someone to not always end up being done over.

‘Proper rules. Who does what and when. Look at this stuff what’s coming in from all around the world. Easy pickings. We nick it and sell it on. It’s only what everyone else is doing, why shouldn’t we?’

‘We' - that enticing, inclusive assumption this swaggering boy made that Bill would be in on his plan. However, there was no denying that there was something in Atticus’ easy-going self-confidence which enticed Bill to throw his lot in with the older boy. That and the knowledge that the alternative was to continue grubbing out a miserable existence amongst the clinging filth of the riverbank.

'You ain't taking all the profit,' said Bill quietly, hurling another fistful of stones into the water. They both looked out across the Thames, through the dense forest of masts, each imagining the possibilities that these ships and their exotic cargoes offered.

'Nah, nah, course not, you'll be me right hand man... Listen, you stink of shit Bill. Let’s get you a wash and some clean clothes.'

It was true that Atticus kept Bill close, a comradeship he did not extend to the other boys in their small band of thieves. He took Bill to his home, where his drunken father and silent, defeated mother barely noticed anything, let alone another small, dirty figure in their midst. There was a wild sister, Brighton, closer to Bill's age than Atticus, who was also a law unto herself and seemed to live a life on the streets, stealing from the markets to supplement the family's meals.  
Atticus' father was a failed ship chandler – his job had been to provide ships with the supplies they needed for journeys but he'd drank the business slowly and surely away, a common enough occurrence and there were always ten other men with cheaper prices waiting to take his place. He was a man of stories and tall tales when in his cups; stories peppered with foul language and laughter but the bonhomie soon drained away with the last dregs of liquor.

Atticus' own language was as foul and baroque as that of the notorious wherrymen, those rough men of the water who operated small vessels, manoeuvring them between opposing banks of the river, dexterously dodging the myriad larger goods barges from the bigger docks which all but clogged up the waterway. Most people paid to be taken across the filthy river but Atticus and Bill usually avoided this, a combination of pleading and bribing with a small handful of olives or a strip of salt beef which Atticus always seemed to have on his person. He was clearly already pilfering on a small scale at least.

Soon between them they had set up a small but regular flow of contraband – stolen at first from the warehouses near various wharves along the river. The smaller boys squeezed in through gaps in the great wooden structures and passed out what they could get their hands on. Before long they were stealing to order and Atticus kept a small ledger, ragged and stained with ink, tucked into his belt where he recorded the incomings and outgoings of their enterprise. A reputation grew, and a reputation would have to be maintained. Bill felt himself pulled along in the riptide of their criminality but the wave had already closed over his head before he realised it.

‘Let's go up the river Bill, to Wapping. They’re building new docks up there, we need to see what we'll be up against.' Half an eye would always have to be kept on the progress of these huge docks, at Wapping, Isle of Dogs and Rotherhithe, built as a way of replacing many of the crumbling warehouses on the east of the river, prone as they were to break ins. Created also to try and prevent the widespread dishonest dealings and theft which took place on a huge scale between where the larger ships moored with their cargo and the goods being deposited at the various numerous wharves along the stretch of river between London Bridge and the Tower. Atticus prided himself on always being one step ahead.

Sometimes they'd pass the Executioner's Dock at Wapping, where they hung pirates and those unfortunates who had committed crimes on the high seas. Bill would stare in fascination at the bodies which swung there, washed over by three tides before they were allowed to be cut down, but Atticus' eyes avoided them. Unusually, Bill had never been to a hanging. Most Londoners, men, women and children, had been part of that fickle mob who attended the brutal dispatching of the criminals of the day, to gather around the gallows and cheer or boo according to who was being suspended from the noose.

‘They keep the rope short at Wapping,’ said Atticus darkly. ‘So a man's neck don’t snap, he suffocates...’

Bill remembered the first time Atticus killed a man: a rival thief. He came across Atticus white and sweating, outside the warehouse they were planning to breach, a knife in his hand and the carcass of a man gutted at his feet. Together they silently wrapped the bleeding body up in some heavy canvas, weighed it down with boulders and deposited it into its watery grave, with no prayer to send it on its way to the shore of death. Things changed in the passing years from that time onwards – thus Atticus also gained a reputation as someone who would make people disappear, even before he was twenty years old. But equally, Atticus became restless. Bill was aware of Atticus' desire to see the world, he talked longingly and often of it.

Then gradually, he was absent more and more, leaving things to French Bill, but not telling him where he was. Bill accepted this, as he did much of Atticus' caprices. Although he was not exactly being secretive, he was certainly more elusive. Bill was a grafter, he kept his head down and he kept the beast of their illegal enterprise well fed.

The first time Bill met James Delaney was not when he became one of his League of the Damned, it was before he had even left for Africa on his fateful mission for the East India Company, and returned as a mythical monster. It was Atticus who had brought the sullen, muscular boy down to the docks, where he’d glowered at Bill when Atticus said:

‘This is Delaney. He’s a bit of a mad bastard. I’ve got a job as crew on his old man’s ships, Bill.’

So this was what Atticus had been up to.  
It was clear Atticus and Delaney were quite familiar with one another, there was a mocking camaraderie between them, which brought a wry smile to the face of Delaney, a boy clearly not accustomed to smiling much. Atticus’ was amiable and good humoured, despite his ruthless side, and it seemed Delaney was as drawn to it as Bill had been. Delaney seemed to enjoy rough company. He was also clearly a looked-after boy, well fed and powerful looking, sometimes in the uniform of the East India Company. Atticus brought him to the docks several more times, showing the other boy around, as expansive and talkative as Delaney was silent and watchful. Perhaps almost as watchful as Bill himself. Bill caught Delaney eyeing him sometimes, a speculative gaze which seemed to say _and what is your purpose?_

It was not a particular surprise, then, to Bill, when Atticus left for his first stint sailing under Horace Delaney and therefore as a legitimate employee of the Delaney Shipping Company.

And so Bill was left behind for a second time.

Over the years Atticus appeared and disappeared like a magician. Each time a little older, a little more weather-beaten. His hair diminished and a huge compass tattoo appeared in its place, spanning his scalp, then a gold tooth materialised in his twisted grin. But he always came back. Full of stories of his travels and the beasts he had seen. Bill couldn’t read or write but Atticus still proudly showed him the book of sketches he’d made of animals, insects and fish; delicate and detailed drawings annotated by Atticus’ spidery writing. They might as well have been mythical creatures so far were they from Bill's sphere of understanding. 

Meanwhile Bill’s own face gradually disappeared behind the thick black beard which rendered his facial expression even more unreadable. He ran things during Atticus’ absences, quietly and efficiently, but with an unshowy ruthlessness which earned their band of thieves an unrivalled reputation.

On one of his stretches between sea voyages, Atticus acquired a run down public house at the docks which he called The Dolphin Inn and it became their headquarters and the gathering place for every desperate vagabond in London. Atticus held court as the landlord of the dilapidated establishment where he handpicked men to carry out various jobs. There was always someone waiting to offer their services or request some piece of business. His career with the Delaney Shipping Company was left behind once more, wanderlust temporarily slaked it appeared.

Bill was his dark shadow, he himself had now murdered and thieved himself far, far away from the small child who was once loved and left behind by his gentle mother. He could barely remember her face now. But he still played the ukulele and he still remembered that his name was really William Dubois. Soon Atticus and Bill were drawn into the orbit of James Delaney once more. Old Man Delaney dead and the rumours about the return of his missing son, that self-same James Delaney, were rife. Atticus again became elusive, often gone from his habitual spot in the Dolphin, and eventually confided to Bill that he was stockpiling supplies for Delaney, some stolen, some obtained legally, for a journey by ship – and guns too.

‘We stay on the right side of Delaney, Bill, and we will be on that boat with him when the time comes.’

‘Where’s he going?’

‘Fuck knows but we’re in too deep with the bastard to be left behind when he leaves this city. It’s him or Executioners Dock, Bill.'

The next time Bill saw Delaney it was at the docks where he was inspecting some muskets Atticus had procured for him. This was a changed man from the boy he’d met years ago; grimy and limping heavily, hoarsely grunting in pain when he exerted himself to examine the guns. He leaned heavily on Atticus’ shoulder and although Bill was too far away to hear the conversation he could see how attentively Atticus tended to the gruff man. Bill had heard the rumour - all of London had - that a Malay had been sent to kill Delaney and had ended up with his throat torn out and heart plucked from his chest. Clearly he had not been unscathed by this encounter. Delaney's suspicious servant lurked nearby; Bill noted him too, a wiry sort who hovered about with his nose in everything, glares of mistrust passing between him and Atticus. Finally Delaney noticed Bill as he moved nearer to load a small boat.

‘Who are you?’ he barked.

‘French Bill.’ This man would not learn Bill’s real name.

There was no recognition, just a terse acknowledging grunt. Atticus helped Delaney onto the boat manned by the great silent Maori, Eden, and they quickly sculled off, Atticus fussily bent over the pained figure of Delaney. Bill paused to watch them go. There was a feeling of something big happening, Bill had been in enough situations with Atticus to be familiar with that mixture of forboding and excitement. He knew would do whatever it took, for there was no alternative.

So Bill's third, and he felt sure, final career began - as that of one of the League of the Damned under James Delaney. Though it was obvious that they truly were a strange and motley crew: himself and Atticus, an actress, several whores, a chemist, a runaway Molly and an odd, silent little boy, amongst other shady characters, they worked with a purpose and drive which Bill had never experienced before, at least while they were still in London with death snapping at their heels. Or perhaps he had, in the early days of his association with Atticus but either way, Bill felt imbued with energy and impetus. James Delaney's plans propelled them all to the Good Hope where they now drifted, somewhat battered and diminished in number on the Atlantic ocean.

 

* * *

  
Atticus appeared on the deck of the Good Hope around midnight with a bottle of rum.

‘There you go, Bill.’ He handed it to Bill and slumped down next to him. ‘Might make the time pass a bit quicker eh? Even if you did drink my last ration too..’

‘Do you think he knows what he’s doing Atticus?’

They both knew who Bill was talking about.

Atticus’ face twitched. He frowned briefly and rubbed his hand over his head, but then his mouth twisted into the familiar grin, gold tooth glinting.

‘I’ll be fucked if I know Bill. That’s the truth of it. Maybe I’ll get to finish me book though. We’re as well being here with him than back in that shithole though ain’t we?’

Bill wouldn't left behind again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book 'London: The Biography' by Peter Ackroyd was really useful in helping me research some of the historical detail for this tale. It's a bit of a tome (And I'm nowhere near finished reading it) but it's brilliant! 
> 
> The conversation Bill has with a 'parson' on the foreshore is more or less lifted from an actual conversation that a chronicler of London's poor, Henry Mayhew (also a social researcher, journalist, playwright and co-founder of Punch magazine!) had with a real life mudlark on the banks of the Thames.
> 
> Next tale - Mr Cholmondeley needs some attention ;)


	8. Sulphur, Mercury and Salt: Physician Heal Thyself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about Mr Cholmondeley. I think he's my favourite along with Atticus. There are translations for the Latin phrases in each section. This is a smut free tale.

  
_Physician Heal Thyself.._.

Did Mr Cholmondeley hear those words spoken during the first weeks of fever and unending pain or were they just taunting him from his own incarcerated mind? Were they only part of the visions, the auditory hallucinations, the sheer hellfire which rolled over his entire being and sent him far from himself? Comprised only of his senses; acrid burnt flesh, blurred sound, metallic tongue, dim shapes. The voyage back to his demolished body was slow.

Sometimes Cholmondeley turned his ruined face into the sea spray, leaning into the lashing wind, just to remind himself he was still alive because the lancinating pain told him that he must be, surely. God knows, everything else about life aboard The Good Hope told him he would have been better off dying on the dockside in London amid one of his own explosions or on the end of a sword, like so many others had. He did not think of those deaths much, some of which he had helped bring about, but of his own death, often.

‘The fucking Lost Hope,’ he muttered to himself, a grim smile pulling at the tight, red skin of his face.

Up until recently, he hadn't seen this new, strange face of his. Though he felt it, all the time, felt the pincer grip of the damaged skin clinging to his skull; simultaneously ridged with scars and yet strangely smooth when he ran a tentative finger over it. He knew he must look like a living nightmare.

'You never were handsome, George,' he muttered to himself, so when Atticus appeared with a shard of mirror from somewhere and held it in front in him with a smug grin, Cholmondeley was not as repulsed as Atticus had clearly hoped he would be.

'I see we are on more equal footing now, dear boy,' drawled Cholmondeley, as Atticus' smile faded. 'Perhaps you will have better luck at attracting the opposite sex now my looks have...faded.'

'Fuck you, Cholmondeley. We should have left you in London when you blew yourself up.'

' _Igni ferroque... hic sunt dragones_ , Atticus....'*

There was still oblique pleasure to be gained in taunting Atticus, and Mr Cholmondeley was still a seeker of pleasure in a way, despite his new and unwelcome physical limitations. He greatly enjoyed Atticus' obvious confusion and stored it away gleefully. He had seen the rough man bent over his notebook and recognised in Atticus a thirst for knowledge which was thwarted by a lack of education. Perhaps if he was less of a bastard to him Cholmondeley might feel like teaching him Latin.

At least the women had been kinder and denied him access to their looking-glasses earlier in his healing process. He was aware he was something of a pet to Lorna in particular these days, a far cry from her past haughty dismissal of him back in London. There seemed to be some kind of safety for her in his altered appearance which allowed her to lean against him as they read books together, swatting fondly at his hand if he turned the pages too fast. Cholmondeley would always have one eye on Delaney at these times, watching the man silently seethe with repressed rage. He was well aware of Delaney and Lorna's relationship, he had been unfortunately acquainted with the sounds of their sexual congress emanating from the captain’s cabin. The whole ship had at times.

 

*with fire and iron...here there are dragons. 

* * *

 

It had been Godfrey who had tended to Cholmondeley most initially; the man who would be a woman, his dress and wig now ragged and ripped. Cholmondeley had been vaguely aware of his gentle voice, though the words were indistinguishable, permeating the fog during his worse agony. And then later when Cholmondeley was more conscious of his surroundings, it was Godfrey who explained that he had been burned, that he was on a ship with James Delaney and none of them were entirely sure where they were going. Cholmondeley had felt stripped to his core – his blistered skin weeping, his body only just recovered from another ravaging infection which made him sweat and groan and twist the rough blanket in his fists. It was Godfrey, too, who had handed him the small, ivory skull once the fever had subsided again.

'This was in your pocket, George,' he whispered. 'It is special to you?'

'Ah special? Yes it is.'

How could he have known the importance of the tiny talisman? The single, macabre skull rosary bead which Maria had given him – perfectly rendered in its excruciating detail, in aged honey-golden ivory. The domed head of the skull was smooth from two centuries of fingers rubbing over it in devotion to the god who took its various owners inevitably towards death. The perpetually grinning mouth of the skull which Cholmondeley could never decide was laughing at or taunting him was perhaps most intriguing of all; between the teeth of the skull, the miniscule head of a snake peeped out and from one of the gaping eye sockets, the tail of the same snake unfurled. Cholmondeley's eyes fell upon the familiar object with a strange mixture of devotion and misery; its reminder as always of the pain he had caused Maria.

Cholmondeley's lips formed her name: Maria.

Godfrey had the air of someone who was used to being the receptacle of secrets, someone who locked things in, quietly and efficiently. Cholmondeley was aware that the gentle man was perhaps the most fish out of water of all of them and though he had not endured physical injury like most of the rest of the crew, he recognised in Godfrey another scarred human being.

'It is a memento mori Godfrey', said Cholmondeley. 'I was given it to remind me that death is in everything... ' _Remember that you must die'_ '.

Maria had not needed to be reminded, because death took her suddenly, pinned her down with its darkness before either of them had time to realise it had been waiting for her.

'I know what a memento mori is, George,' Godfrey replied, only slightly peevishly, 'And we hardly need reminding of that at the moment do we?' His hands moved fretfully over the tatters of his dress.

Cholmondeley was gratified at the use of his christian name, at the humanising effect it had when he felt so ugly and ruined.

'Indeed, I am already half decayed it seems. But I did need to be reminded at the time I was given it. I am something of a hedonist, a disciple of Epicurus, and someone dear to me felt I would benefit from this trinket.' He held the skull up in the light, its familiarity almost painful in the strange surroundings he found himself in.

Cholmondeley attempted a smile but it hurt: _everything fucking hurts!_

'Epicurus was not a hedonist strictly speaking,' said Godfrey quietly. 'He advocated pleasure, but virtuous pleasure.'

Cholmondeley nodded, pleased with the younger man's knowledge.

'Yes, I may have started out like that,' muttered Cholmondeley wryly. 'But since he also says that the gods have all but abandoned humans and we are just atoms bouncing around in a vacuum, well, I just thought... fuck it!'

Godfrey laughed, a delicate and pleasant sound to Cholmondeley's ears but he wondered if Godfrey had ever really known pleasure, there was such an inherent sadness to him.

'I do wonder,' said Cholmondeley, grunting as he shifted to a more upright position in the bunk, 'how _you_ have ended up on this ship?'

He folded his hands in his lap and looked at Godfrey, whose face immediately became sombre again.

'I knew him from school. He recognised me at the East India Company. He blackmailed me, when he found out...'

Here, Godfrey swept a hand towards his wig, dress. There was a whole world of untold story in those few words, but Cholmondeley did not push. He had come across Mollies before, of course, in his frequent sallies into the darker side of society, but Godfrey seemed so tentative and fragile, not like the raucous characters he had met there, secure in their borrowed skin.

'Yes, he makes it his business to know our weaknesses, doesn't he?' Cholmondeley nodded, noting Godfrey's reluctance to catch his eye.

Several emotions flitted across Godfrey's face but he did not answer. Cholmondeley himself was reminded of his own first meeting with the man who had thrown a bag of gold onto the table where Cholmondeley was buried up to the hilt in a woman, Delaney utterly unperturbed at his _in flagrante delico_ situation. It still stung him that Delaney was able to approach him in the midst of one of his weaknesses and offer him another enticement and that, damn himself, he had accepted. Sex and women and money, mundane enough flaws and he was hardly alone in those foibles, but he was certainly paying for it now. Was this a form of the reckoning Maria had warned him about?

Cholmondeley held up the skull between the finger and thumb of his hand.

'My memento mori and I would like to get some fresh air. Will you help me onto the deck?'

So it was Godfrey's shoulder he leaned heavily on and Godfrey who installed him on the deck in the shade, with instructions to stay out of the sun and wind. Cholmondeley did not want to tarnish the care Godfrey offered by telling him that he didn't care about the sun burning him or the wind ripping at his raw face, that he should instead be wrapped in a shroud and shunted into the sea, because he should be dead. Instead, he nodded patiently and waited for the wave of agony to roll over the shore of his broken body.

 _'Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas_ ,'** he said between gritted teeth, the ivory skull biting into the flesh of his palm.

 

**Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. From Ecclesiastes 1.2

* * *

  
  
It was Cholmondeley's job to operate the bilge pump, down in the depths of the ship's hull. It was a filthy, strenuous job to propel the handle of the pump which sucked out the water that gathered there and it took every ounce of his diminished strength to do it. He was determined not to complain, despite the fact he knew Atticus and Bill both used the stagnant water which pooled there as a latrine at the times they were unable to send their piss over the side of the ship because the women were around. Yet strangely, Delaney had no such qualms, regularly letting loose fountains of urine into the sea regardless of who was present. Cholmondeley recognised something of the exhibitionist in their captain, prone as he was to it himself.

Sometimes Robert would come and help him do it, on the days when he was particularly exhausted.

'It's not so bad as the gunpowder eh, Rob?' he said. 'We can rest from this, if we need to. Can you still remember how we made it? That endless stirring?'

'I think so, Mr Cholmondeley,' the boy's earnest face turned to him, and Cholmondeley felt the pull of responsibility again. 'Would you teach me again, sir?'

'You were a fine apprentice. We can talk through the principles some time. Why did we need to stir?'

'Because the gunpowder was like a...baby? That if you didn't look after it, it would...ruin a marriage?'

A frown creased the boys brow, embarrassed at his attempt to recall Cholmondeley's explanation of the extremely hazardous conditions they had worked under.

Cholmondeley laughed. 'Something like that, yes. Well remembered. The addition of the chlorate was like when a baby is introduced to a happy marriage. Constant attention was required. You were very brave.'

'I'm sorry I didn't visit you when you were ill, Mr Cholmondeley.' It was shame which darkened the child's face now.

'I looked frightening I imagine? You've had enough fright in your life, Robert. Think nothing of it. Perhaps we should concoct some laughing gas for the crew, don't you think we all need it?'

'Especially Mr Delaney, sir?'

'Oh especially him Rob!'

He tried to keep his smile gentle so it would not pull at his face and make him even more grotesque.

However, Delaney had also kept his distance from Cholmondeley while he was in his sick bed, only approaching him once he was making regular visits to sit on the deck. Cholmondeley was grateful for the lack of reaction Delaney displayed to his altered appearance, and although he had observed the man's eyes travelling over his injuries, there was no flinch from them. Delaney still terrified him though. He understood his own fear of Delaney as a fear of death itself, as a turning away from darkness, which Cholmondeley had spent his whole life doing. He was a man of bright, chemical light – burning himself out in flame was preferable to lurking in darkness, he had always believed.

Occasionally Cholmondeley would also check on the barrels of gunpowder, their volatility a constant nag at the back of his mind and it was here he discovered Delaney on one such visit, sitting amidst the barrels, a fire flint held in his hand. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Cholmondeley saw that Delaney's face was smeared with some kind of pigment and an array of feathers and other unidentifiable objects lay between his feet.

'You know, Paracelsus believed that all disease came from just three things.' Cholmondeley lowered himself to the floorboards across from Delaney.

'I do not care, Cholmondeley.'

'Still, I will tell you, James.'

The darkness of the hold made him brave somehow. His visceral terror of Delaney had slowly diminished in line with his own vanishing fear of death.

'I do not _care_ Cholmondeley!' But there was only fatigue, rather than the real bite of anger in Delaney's voice.

'He believed it was sulphur, mercury and salt which contained all the poisons which contribute to human disease. These are also the three principles of alchemy.'

Delaney flicked at the flint he held suddenly, the spark illuminating his face briefly.

'For fuck's sake James, must you?!'

'If I must listen to you, this is the exchange, hm?'

Mr Cholmondeley stared at the man who apparently played with all their lives so casually. _Meticulous and yet completely fucking insane it appeared. What did it matter if he blew them up?_

'Sulphur, mercury and salt,' he resumed. 'First sulphur, the flammable binding agent between substance and transformation, then mercury, the transformative agent, volatile and yet necessary to fusion. Finally salt, the grounding fixative, solidifying.'

Cholmondeley paused. If only he had his apparatus onboard, what fun he could have. That oaf Atticus' eyes would be out on stalks.

'I am not in the audience at one of your fucking parlour trick shows, chemist.' Delaney's voice intoned from the darkness.

Cholmondeley felt the ghost of the old mischief start to rise in him, coursing through the very marrow of his bones. None of it mattered. Delaney needed him, and while that was the case, he would be kept alive. He put on his best taunting voice.

'Equally, sulphur is understood as the human spirit, mercury the soul and salt the body. I rather think Ms. Bow is mercury – quicksilver, fleet and sinuous. What do you think? Or is she salt, the earthly body which tames the flammable sulphur? Oh, you are sulphur of course, Captain.'

Cholmondeley felt slightly dizzy, as though he was standing on the edge of a precipice. _I walked to the edge and all the fear left me._

'Need I remind you of our conversation about Ms Bow back in London?'

'Oh she is fully yours. The whole ship knows it. _More ferarum_.' ***

Delaney's head snapped up to glare at Cholmondeley.

' _Tace atque abi_!' Delaney's voice was rough, the beginnings of real rage starting to kindle.  
Cholmondeley heaved himself up from the floor, every movement he made still painful, but he felt cheered by his conversation with Delaney.

'I am glad that your education has allowed you to tell me to fuck off in Latin. I will remember that.'

As Cholmondeley made his way back to the deck, he pondered his own place within the three principles of sulphur, mercury and salt. Ah salt, he was salt, no doubt about it. He caught sight of Pearl peeling turnips next to Lorna. The girl was a conundrum, casting sour looks at all and sundry one moment and peering over his shoulder at books the next. Mr Cholmondeley thought Pearl might be salty too. Perhaps he would endeavour to find out.

But it was Maria's skin he tasted, Maria's pale white neck, Maria's eyes, dancing with humour and chastisement and exasperation all at once which he saw. He sought her, always, down the passage of time, she would always be that figure just out of reach to him, just around the corner. Did he make her into something she never was now that she had been neatly tidied away, into her own death. Did he forget that she never belonged to him anyway?

 _Ah Maria, my heart, it is so sore. I am sorry, so very sorry_.

Robert appeared suddenly in Cholmondeley's line of vision, grinning broadly and clutching a hat, _his_ hat. Miraculously, the jaunty peacock feathers and red berries were still intact in the hat band. It was utterly ridiculous and Cholmondeley immediately put it on.

'How do I look, Robert?' He turned his head from side to side.

'Well, sir... fucking awful really.'

'As it should be Robert, as it should be.'

 

*** Like beasts.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed researching appropriate Latin phrases for this. Latin for fuck off was particularly satisfying although some translations had it more boringly as 'shut up and go away.' I will leave it as fuck off I think.
> 
> Epicurus was a Greek philosopher.  
> Paracelsus was a Swiss physician and alchemist, known as one of the most influential medical scientists during the Renaissance.


	9. Reunion: More Ferarum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter of smut basically. That's it! Follows on from Tale 5: Lorna And James Check Provisions.
> 
> More Ferarum = 'Like Beasts'.

Sometimes in her more fanciful moments, Lorna imagined the boat itself was alive, like some kind of great wooden leviathan. Certainly the creaking of its masts, deepening almost to a boom in stronger gusts of wind, reminded her of some animal bellowing in pain. Similarly the frantic flap of the sails as they attempted to shake themselves free of their ropes were like some winged creature swooping above her head. But she kept these opinions to herself, The Good Hope was not a place to reveal notions which hinted at madness. The ship was already infected with it, or if not madness then at least superstition. Lorna’s own superstitions, born of her time in theatre, were elaborate and deep and she was also ashamed of them. Though she considered herself rational, Lorna was unsure if it was in fact a madness born of lust which threatened to overwhelm all logic in her.

Lorna had been almost sleepless in the two nights since she'd stumbled upon James in the hold. Some perversity in her prevented her from going to him that night as he’d commanded. She felt the need to wrestle back some modicum of control. Even to the point that she did not allow her own fingers to tease herself to climax as she had been doing, with James’ name choked back in her throat, and his hard body painfully present in her minds eye. She denied herself as he had denied her. He had not sought her out especially in the following days since their encounter but his eyes had continued to follow her when she was on deck. He waited, as he always did, the power of his strange patience undeniable and strong.

So Lorna waited until it was dark, until she was sure Pearl was asleep. She felt like a new shoot on a plant waiting to unfurl. She had lain in her bunk for what felt like hours, listening to the murmur of the wind, every sense alert. Finally, she rose.

Lorna did not knock. His cabin was dim and although her eyes had already adjusted to the dark, James was hard to see initially, sitting at the small desk in the corner, his bulk blocking the weak light from the single lantern. So when he turned to her, his face was in darkness and she moved closer to him automatically. James' own movements were languid though, unhurried; he knew she would come eventually, of course, as he had demanded of her in the hold. Lorna felt some need to maintain composure even in her walking the path to him so obediently.

'Must you always control things James?' she said, tipping her head back to get a better look at his shadowed face.

'I believe control is a necessary measure Lorna. To protect things which are important, to reach destinations.'

'People, James? Must you always control people?'

'Do you feel controlled Lorna, or are you here of free will?'

Lorna knew he meant the question in a wider sense, about her inclusion within his damned League itself. It was true she had lost the ability to discern between her own will, that of James and the sheer necessity of being there for her own survival – it had all blended to a murky soup of motivation and intention. But then, thought Lorna, is there anyone here who is not caught in the same sludge?

‘We are all here for our own reasons it seems. Not least because we will hang if we went back to London.’

Lorna became aware that while she was dressed only in her thin nightdress, James was fully dressed: breeches, shirt and boots. She glanced at the desk behind him, no more than a plank of wood attached to the wall, at the papers strewn there and was reminded of the desk in the attic room back in London, that place where they had explored the landscape of their mutual desire, their bodies sliding slickly against one another.

James stood, stretched himself, took one slow step towards her, his eyes travelling the length of her slight form.

‘We are not here to talk of such things Lorna. There will be other times to talk.’ He paused.  
‘Get on the bed now and I will show you the only words we need.’

He waited then for her to comply, his stillness implacable and compelling. Lorna did as she was bid and went to the bunk, and he followed her, watching as she sank onto the mattress there.

And when he knelt at the end of the bunk and lifted her foot to his mouth, the rasp of his beard on the skin of the arch sent a great shudder through her body. His mouth travelled briefly to her ankle bone, to circle it with his tongue, nipping the skin so that a moan finally broke free from Lorna’s mouth. She was not sure she could survive another drawn out session of denial with James Delaney but the last semblance of sense in her had fled.

He bunched up the material of her insubstantial nightdress then, slowly pushing her thighs apart to gain access to the shivering white skin there, swirling his fingers over it, inching slowly nearer to the wet centre below her tangle of hair. James murmured to her, quietly but not gently, his voice still that harsh rasp; that he would fuck her and he had wanted to do this so badly over the last weeks, that he felt her thighs shake, that he saw the want in her eyes. A low, unhurried litany of his lust. And all the time, his fingers danced slowly over the flesh of her inner thighs, only stopping to wrench the front of her nightdress down and gain access to her breasts. He only had to flick his tongue lightly over her nipples for her to arch her back, gasping and clutching at his hair. And Lorna felt the disconnect approach; the switch from rational, ordered woman, to the other thing which sprang alive under his hands and mouth. Here again was that woman who writhed against his touch and whose world instantly shrank to the agonising pinpoint of his tongue on her nipple, to the thick finger sliding slowly, steadily over her slit, a light, teasing slip, designed to make her push her hips against it even as he moved his finger back and back again, making her chase his obscene touch. The scrabble of her fingers on the thick muscle of his neck only made him emit a low laugh against her breast where he had drawn her nipple into his mouth to graze it with his teeth; another light, tortuous touch.

‘James.. I.. want you to.. I need..’

But Lorna could not find the words, could only press her lips together against another deep groan. He looked up at her, his own lips slightly swollen behind his beard, eyes black with lust.

‘It is painful, yes? To want something so badly that it takes you over? A kind of madness, hm?’

His voice teasing but with an underlying darker tone. Abruptly, he pushed two fingers deep into her and held them there as he watched her mouth fall open. Lorna rose up, gasping, onto her elbows as his thumb began a steady massage of her clit, rolling over the wet, swollen bud. Her breath escaped in a hiss as he pushed her back down onto her back and knelt, still fully clothed, between her thighs to continue his ministrations, his face screwed up in concentration as he watched her reactions.

‘Is this how you touch yourself?’ he muttered, as his fingers continued to move in and out of her. 'Like this, Lorna?' He slowed the movement down, hypnotised by the expressions which flickered across her face. The tight clench of her around his fingers was starting to make him lose his resolve to control the situation, his jaw tightened and his teeth ground painfully as he held himself back from what he really wanted to do; to fuck her like an animal, to lose himself in her body as he always did. He pulled himself back from her, standing at the foot of the bunk, determined again to draw it out further. He looked down at Lorna, dishevelled and panting, her thighs fallen open upon the narrow frame of the bunk, her nightdress bundled up to her waist. She looked beautiful, abandoned to herself, given over to him.

‘I want you to show me how you touch yourself, Lorna.'

There was no request in this statement and as he said it, he unbuckled his thick leather belt. He intended his own bare flesh to be upon hers when they fucked but not before he watched how her fingers had worked her own body as she thought of him. His eyes followed her fingers as they slid over her slit; he shucked his shirt out of his trousers and pulled it over his head without unbuttoning it. Would the dark ink of his tattoos disguise the flush on his skin, he wondered, his sheer want for her written upon his flesh, mirroring the dusky flush blooming on her own chest as she spread herself open before him, her fingers now working themselves deep inside her slick opening. And her eyes never left his, the most erotic thing of all for James, her steady gaze, her awareness of that power over him which she now wielded. He stepped out of the rest of his clothes, his stocky, marred body, tense with lust, and the hard shaft of his cock springing free from the confines of his clothing. Lorna’s eyes shifted to his body and the muffled moan she gave as he ran his hand over his own rigid length was enough now for James to fall upon her, finally, in a frenzy of grasping hands, their mouths opening to each other, tongues thrusting and sucking. Her nightdress now wrenched fully off so skin slid against skin, her body twisting under his as he crawled over her, his weight pushing her back onto the bunk.

He was deeply and fully inside her at the first hard stroke. There was no control in him now, no holding back, only the deep, dark thrust of his body into hers, fingers clenched in hair, around tense flesh, his head pushed into her shoulder as he rutted against her. He was hard as iron inside her, as hard as he had ever been, the shaft of his cock embedded in her hot wet slit, the surrender to his lust for her as beautiful and desperate as he knew it would be. Her body taking his hard fucking of her, rolling her hips against his, her neck stretched out to allow his mouth to find and suck the tendons there as though he were draining the life force from her. But she met him at every hard shove into her, at every push, even as he forced her legs up against her chest to bury himself deeper into her. And when he rolled her over and urged her to straddle him, she did, and she rode him, one hand pressed onto his chest and one clutching the twitching muscle of his thigh, leaning back so he could watch the slide of his cock in and out of her as she rose and fell on him, her own thighs tensing. It took barely anything for her to come then, eyes rolling back in her head as he slid his thumb against her clit, his other hand pushing against her arse as he thrust himself up into her, grunting like the animal he was. His own orgasm came swiftly after, a heat building to unbearable level before he spilled into her, hands clutching her hips, a rough mumble of her name against her neck.

  
Then they were both panting and spent, Lorna sprawled on top of him. They did not yet speak, and James’ hand slid along her back, stroking her spine gently, enjoying the weight of her on him, reacquainting himself with certain marks and freckles on the map of her body. As always the deep peace of being with her in this way flooded him. When Lorna slipped down beside him on the bunk and he rolled against her, the deep pressure of his warm body made her sigh and sink back against him. He smoothed the hair back from her brow and pressed his lips there, and he felt the hard place in him, that dark, unfathomable place in his soul, open just a little more for Lorna Bow to slip into. There would be no more denial.


	10. James Delaney Makes A Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written a few months ago from a prompt from wsyiwygot on Tumblr "James Delaney Makes A Mistake And Someone Notices". Of course I had it that it was the Chemist who noticed...
> 
> This is smut free and very short, just putting it in storage here and it is apparently going to be AT LEAST ANOTHER GOD DAMN YEAR before even shooting begins on Taboo S2.

‘Oh dear fucking LORD, what are you doing!?’ George Cholmondeley gripped the sides of the rotten wooden door, his eyes wide in horror. Through the fog of his fright, he felt his bowels churn and loosen slightly. 

Inside the dilapidated barn, bathed in an almost celestial shaft of amber light, was James Delaney, brows lowered in concentration. Coat and hat discarded, sleeves rolled up. He was liberally sprinkling an innocent looking white powder into the farting, gelatinous vat of evil mud which was the nascent gunpowder.  The boy, Robert, lurked nearby, as he usually did around Delaney, huge eyes fixed upon him.

‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m adding the fucking...’

‘Robert, get out! Now! I can’t BELIEVE... ‘ Cholmondeley staggered towards the huge barrels, clutching a wooden stick he had caught up in his hand.

‘...Chlorate...’ Delaney finished, shaking the last vestiges of powder from the small sack.

Cholmondeley felt slightly faint and a strange buzzing had set up in his head. The boy, ever quick on the uptake, recognised the situation was entirely not suitable for a child, no matter how hardy, and scampered out.

‘Oh God, oh Jesus wept,’ moaned the chemist. Delaney glared at him, affronted.

‘We haven’t got fucking time to pray, we need the gunpowder. Now.’ He shrugged and threw the empty sack down.

Fear of imminent death rapidly overtook Cholmondeley’s fear of Delaney. He thrust the stick towards the glowering man. 

‘Stir!’ spat Cholmondeley. ‘Jesus Christ, stir, man! What were you... you should have  _waited!’_

Cholmondeley watched the dawning of comprehension on the face of the arrogant bastard who stood before him, dumbly holding the stick.  Bizarrely, the fear had now taken on an almost exhilarating quality for Cholmondeley. God help him, he felt  _alive!_ At least for now.

‘Where are the...men you promised. To stir? Round the clock as I explained?!’

‘The boy will help...’ Delaney’s voice was strained as he dragged the stick through the thick mixture. His eyes flickered away from Cholmondeley’s incredulous stare.  Delaney at least had the fucking decency to look vaguely uncomfortable.

‘The boy!? We need more than a child... Your SON!’

‘They're on their fucking way!’ Delaney snapped. ‘Tonight...’

Cholmondeley could sense his advantage over the normally unshakeable man who had sweat beading on his forehead as he worked the gunpowder mixture.

'You pay me to be your chemist.  If you want to do my job, feel free, but we will be blown sky-fucking-high before sunrise.  You have no idea of the power of this stuff.'

Delaney grunted.  He had not met Cholmondeley's eye for some time.

' _This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen_ ,' the chemist sighed as he picked up another stick.

They both stirred. And stirred. It would be a long night. Cholmondeley felt sure he would be able to find any number of Shakespeare quotes befitting the situation.  And George knew that Delaney just  _loved_ Shakespeare...


End file.
